Sunday, January 18, 2009

Trying something new...

Like most good people trying to take charge of their spending, I try my best to track expenses. I've tried various methods from tracking things in excel to writing everything down.

The thing with writing all my expenditures in excel was that the document was saved on my home computer. There I'd be at work with an expense & no way of tracking it besides sending myself an email saying hey when you get home, write this down in the tracking document. Well that wouldn't work because by the end of the day the email I had sent myself would be way down in the inbox & I'd forget.

I also tried writing everything down with in a physical notepad that I carried around. While this worked, I felt like a lunatic when I'd go back to the car after a shopping trip & take out my pen & pad & write things down. Sometimes I'd be out with friends & no opportunity to write it down. I felt a little silly doing it in front of them. I know I shouldn't care but I am a little self-conscious in that way.

So what I am trying now is to track my expenses in Google Docs. They have a spreadsheet program which has almost the same functionality as Excel and the best part is I can access it anywhere there is an internet connection. So I've set a little something up and we'll see how it goes. It's very minimalistic at the moment but if it works for me, I might try & spruce it up.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's a good idea. Back when Google Docs for me didn't exist.. I just saved the receipts from wherever I visited and logged it at the end of the day.

That might be an easy way to track everything.

Fabulously Broke in the City

"Just a girl trying to find a balance between being a Shopaholic and a Saver."

Anonymous said...

I was using Wasabe but I find that it's a pain to download all of my accounts every single time I want to see what I've spent. I need a new strategy but not sure what to use. I do use Google Docs for everything else...