Here's how to keep track of your monthly expenses

Have you ever experienced a situation when you have money but you really don’t know how you spent it all? Keeping track of your expenses is essential for your finance but many people seem to find it difficult to do it.

Tracking your spending helps you identify some financial issues that you can easily correct, which will make a huge difference to your money matters. Here are easy ways to track your monthly expenses

1.Categorize your expenses

The first thing to do is to categorize your expenses. There are two types of expenditure; fixed and variable.

Your fixed are your regular monthly expenses that really don’t change while your variable expenses are those expenses you can adjust at any time. 

List out all your regular monthly expenses. The bills you need to pay regularly like car loans, utility bills, mobile data plan subscription and so on while your variable expense is the money you spend on food, clothes, travelling etc.

Categorizing your expenses helps you know how much you have spent in a month and is one of the most important things you can do to start off your new way of saving money.

2. Review your expenses

After categorizing and checking how much you have spent, the next step is to review your expenses. You need to look for areas you spent a lot and you can improve on.

Look for ways to save more after you have reviewed your expense. You can improve your spending by cutting back on some expenses you don’t really need such as fast food and cutting back on drinking.

You should also review those big projects you embark upon like buying a car, building a house and so on. These are expenses that don’t come up regularly but they really dip into your finance. Reviewing such irregular costs will create room for better financial planning for emergencies.

3. Create a plan

After categorizing and reviewing your expenses, create a spending plan to make it easy to track your spending.

You need to also set some financial goals like building an emergency fund for any unforeseen issues that may come up. The key to planning is to be well-prepared for any eventuality.

4. Use money apps to help you track your spending

People might find it difficult to track their monthly expenses using a spreadsheet. Instead of going through the stress of tracking your monthly expenses with a spreadsheet and getting yourself confused, you can download a money tracking app, which are designed for ease of use and make it easier to see patterns in your spending behaviour.

There are free online money apps you can download to your phones such as Spending Tracker and Money Lover, both of which you can get on Android and IOS.

5. Create room for change

As you track your monthly expenses, always have it in mind to find ways to create room for positive change in your spending.

When it comes to tracking your expenses, it can be very helpful to know the right things to spend money on and what to cut out.

This may seem daunting at first but once you start, you will quickly get the hang of it and saving will not seem like such a chore. After a few months, you will notice a change in the way you think about money and find yourself saving without thinking twice.