Welcome to today’s assignment! This week is all about building habits to track expenses. Diligently tracking your expenses is a crucial part of budgeting. And not only that, but diligent tracking helps instill in us the habit of thinking and planning before we even go out and spend. Then, thinking about our purchases ahead of time gives us the opportunity to check with our budgets to see if we can actually afford to spend or not.
Today’s Assignment
- Log all of your transactions today. Your assignment is to write down every purchase you make, every dollar you give away, and every bit of savings you set aside in Goodbudget. Try your best to record these transactions at the exact moment they happen — like right at the checkout line before you walk out of the store. If you forget, don’t worry! Hanging on to your receipts can help you catch up at the end of the day. Remember to add things you bought online, as well as anything on auto-pay.
- Let us know how your first full day of tracking expenses went in the comments below! What did you spend on? What helped you remember to record your expenses? Share your tips for getting caught up if you missed a few expenses.
Happy budgeting,
-The Goodbudget Team
7 thoughts on “What to Do *Before* You Leave the Store”
Now that so many of those credit card checkout machines have those “Do you want a paper receipt, emailed receipt, or no receipt”, I found that a good reminder to save paper and use Goodbudget!
Same here!
I love to log on what I’ve spent because it helps me feel really accomplished, strange as that might sound. I always get the receipt if I need to leave quickly and at the first moment I get to record it, I do because then I feel prepared for the next thing.
Entering receipts is a chance to re-evaluate my purchase on a needs vs wants basis.
It also feels similar to shopping the store again which helps me reconnect to the positive & negatives of the shopping experience.
I save my receipts, place them in a box, and enter them once a week into Goodbudget: a scheduled day & time.
I liked logging my expenses. It made me feel like I was taking control.
Logging my expenses gives me the chance to see what I am spending and I find that I don’t want to see my balance decrease so I spend less.
I like to review what I bought. Then no my shopping list, I have items marked as ‘DO NOT BUY’. Avoid the impulse purchase.