What I Use to Track and Manage my Money

As a conscientious money spender, I love nothing more than sharing what I use to track and manage my money day in and day out. I recently shared a post on some of the best money saving apps that I have used in the past and others that I am still using and it prompted this idea to share how I manage my money and some of the tools I utilise to track my spending. Staying on top of my expenditures is so important to me as I don’t want to spend what I don’t have or fail to pay an unexpected bill that might pop-up.

When I started on my financial journey I did not think much about the types of tools I could use to track my spending and manage my money other than using the excel trackers (which I am still using today). During this financial journey, I have grown, experimented a lot and found tools that work for me and support the kind of lifestyle I wanted to lead and I am currently living. Not everyone loves talking about money but it is so important that we teach the upcoming generation about tracking and managing personal finances. This is why I am so excited to share what I use to track and manage my money.

What I Use to Track and Manage My Money

When I read, ‘why didn’t they teach me this at school’, it made me realise that there are so many people out there who don’t know how to manage their money. Don’t get me wrong, it is all well and good for couples to have someone who takes care of all the ‘financial matters’ but its even more important that you too are aware of your financial standing, any bills that need paying, debts that need to be settled and how much you have saved up.

I know a lot of people who say, ‘oh I don’t touch the money, my {insert spouse} takes care of all that’ and as good as that is, how will you manage when that person is no longer around or able to? This is why I feel so strongly especially towards women who don’t feel the need to know their financial standing and leaving it all to their spouse. Take the time to learn about your home finances, you don’t have to be an expert, you just need to know what is coming in, outgoings and your savings.

Now that I have shared my personal view on that matter, below I share what I use to track and manage my money.

Budget Trackers

I am a sucker for a good budget tracker and I use a number of them for various things to keep an eye on my financial standing. I use the Break Budget tracker by Patricia Bright and my very own curated ‘Zero Budget Tracker‘ to stay on top of my expenditures. I created my zero budget tracker for people who live pay check to pay check or those with multiple income streams and wish to track all their spending, saving and see where they can save money.

What I love about my budget tracker is that it has three types of expenses: fixed (mortgage/rent, utilities), Debt (credit cards, car payments) and Personal expenses (gym, socialising, shopping). Then I have a separate section for income and another for savings plus an extra section which tallies everything up. Throughout the tracker I have formulas that can be replicated and you can stay on top of your spending and monitor your savings.

Money Saving Apps

Knowing where your money is coming from and where you are spending it is all well and good but we often forget about the small change. I am not big on penny counting but I do love rounding them up and saving those very pennies in one of my savings accounts. This is why I love Plum (affiliate link) so much, I am able to set-up saving goals and rules and using AI it learns my spending habits and recommends when and how much I can save as well as rounding up on my pennies tucking them away for a rainy day.

For my side business, I use apps that help me stay on top of my money like Xero which is an accounting software and Monzo Business account where I keep my side hustle money separate from my salary and everyday bills. There are so many apps out there that you can use to not only track your spending but also help you save money in the process.

Investments – Smart Investor

Whilst calling myself an investor feels like an imposter syndrome I have actually been investing in single shares and the stock market for the last 8 years and it has been fruitful. I have been able to buy properties, clear our family debt, helped family members and live a comfortable life because of the investments I have made in the last 8+ years. I am not financial advisor so I will not be advising you which stocks to buy or whom to invest with but I will share whom I invest with.

When I started investing I just bought single stocks for the company I worked for and thankfully in the long run it worked out. Now I don’t only invest in single stocks, I invest in index funds with my current bank and with Trading 212 (a UK trading platform). I also utilise the investment feature of my Plum app where I am able to invest using the small change from my everyday expenditures. It is so easy to invest these days but I would recommend you educate yourself on investing before jumping head first into it and learning about associated costs.

Current and Savings Accounts

I think everyone has a current account or two and I hope people have savings account too. I have 4 different current accounts with 4 different banks (they all offer something different), 4 savings accounts with the 4 different banks mentioned above plus savings pots with the money saving apps. There are pros and cons to having so many accounts which I will share in another post but most I opened out of necessity, an example is my current account with my mortgage provider. I didn’t want to wait on statements to see how much I still had to go and any fees I may have incurred.

With the 4 savings accounts I opened them because they offer different interest rates which means I maxed those accounts so I could benefit from their high interest rates but made sure they didn’t come with hefty costs. My main bank offers interest rates of 0.01% which does nothing for your savings but 0.5% on another makes all the difference in the world. This is why I have this many savings accounts but also keeping my savings account separate from my main account reduces the temptation of spending the money I have saved.

Notebooks

Even though I have apps, excel trackers and whatnots, I still love writing things down and tracking my expenditures. I write down daily expenditures and on a weekly basis I add them up and see how much I had spent in that week and where I could do better for the new week. This also helps me when I am completing my monthly trackers because I have all the information handy and don’t need to start playing around with my statements or searching for receipts.

Writing my spending down in my notebooks keeps me honest, I write down every expenditure but not to track pennies but more to make sure I am sticking with my 50-20-30 rule (50% must-haves, 20% wants and 30% savings). It is so easy to spend money during the week that sometimes you don’t even know what you spent it on or where you even spent it. Every night I write down what I spent on and how much then on Sunday I tally it all up. I even track when I make extra mortgage repayments or an unexpected bill pops up, I write down what it was, where I got the money I used to pay for it and make a note to replenish if I used a sinking fund or my savings.

That is how I track and manage my money, its so simple that it doesn’t take more than 5-minutes for daily expenditure tracking, more than 10-minutes for weekly tally and implementing new strategies for the week ahead and no more than an hour for monthly budget tracking. How do you track and manage your money in your house? Do you leave it all to your spouse, do it yourself or have a clear understanding on how finances are managed in your home?