Keeping A Daily Spending Diary And Small Business Record Keeping

Summary: Have you ever taken $20 out of an ATM and wondered later where it went? Start keeping a daily spending diary to keep track of where your money goes. Try it out for one week and you'll be amazed at how much you can spend on the little things like coffee, eating out and entertainment. Here's how to do it: Take a blank piece of paper and create a column for each day of the week, Monday through Friday. Put the piece of paper in your wallet or purse - somewhere where you can...

Have you ever taken $20 out of an ATM and wondered later where it went? Start keeping a daily spending diary to keep track of where your money goes. Try it out for one week and you'll be amazed at how much you can spend on the little things like coffee, eating out and entertainment. Here's how to do it: Take a blank piece of paper and create a column for each day of the week, Monday through Friday. Put the piece of paper in your wallet or purse - somewhere where you can have it with you at all times. Make a note of every single penny that you spend - This is very important, if you forget to write down a coffee here and a soda there, you won't have a complete picture of how you're spending your money by the end of the week. At the end of the week quickly order the items that you spent money on throughout the week into the following categories: Food, transportation, entertainment, clothing, housing and other. Next add up your expenses in each category. Here's an example of one day: Monday Coffee - $2.75 Food: $10.60 Bus fare - $3.00 Transportation: $3.00 Lunch - $7.85 Entertainment: $2.50 Magazine - $2.50 TOTAL: $16.10 Next, find out what percentage of your money you spend on each category by dividing the total for each category by the overall total. Following the example above, I spent 66% on food ($10.60/$16.10). Once you have completed your calculations look carefully through your analysis. Does anything surprise you? Are you spending more money than you thought on small items? Small things, like coffee, drinks, cigarettes etc