I’ve been dutifully recording my expenses for two weeks now. Here are a couple of observations so far.

It really is simple and flexible. Just as I had hoped, this method is much less stressful that when I had to worry about synchronizing accounts online or reconciling debits and credits with personal finance software; Now I just have to dedicate about 10 minutes twice a week and type in single digit numbers into a spreadsheet. Just simple addition!

You can see how much you have left as you go. By setting an goal for each spending category and updating every few days, I notice things like “hey, I already spent $115 eating out this week, I should cut back a bit”. It’s similar to the envelope or bucket method of budgeting, where you can only spend a set amount from each category, but not as strict.

Just a quick reminder that I’m tracking my expenses in February, and everyone with a similar inclination should join in the fun.

Here are the categories I assigned myself in PearBudget:

Regular Expenses – Housing, Phone, Cable, Internet, Garbage, Insurance
Variable Expenses – Gasoline, Electricity/Gas, Groceries, Dining out, Household, Personal Care, Pet Care, Recreation, Everything Else
Irregular Expenses – Car Repair, Travel, Gifts, Healthcare, Water/Sewer

My receipt spike is excited! I’ll check back in after a week.

Pop Quiz: How much money did you spend on food last month?

I’ve been blogging about money now for almost two years, and I’ve been wanting to put together a kind of distillation of all the things that I’ve learned. All these posts are the equivalent of rough drafts, so comments are welcome.

Taking a step back and thinking of what is the first step to setting yourself up for financial security, the first thing I thought of was to make a budget and make sure you spend less than you earn. But then I thought, before even doing that, I think you need to first sit back and observe your current habits. What are you spending now?
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You’d think that with all the accounts that I have, I would love getting my bills electronically. Nope. I recently tried to go 100% e-bill. Nearly ended very badly with multiple late payments. I get so many e-mails a day, it’s just too easy for me to put them off initially. Of course, if it then gets pushed off the first page of e-mails, I may never see it again for weeks.

Paper bills are nice in that even with a cluttered desktop, I still clean it off constantly and at most I wait a few days before paying the bill online. For some reason, also having a hardcopy of the bill for recordkeeping is comforting. Anyhow, not that anyone cares, but I’m now back to 100% paper bills. Even if Citi keeps dangling that $5 carrot to get me back…

Most homeowners may already know this, but since I’ve never had to purchase a bunch of large appliances, I only noticed this recently while fawning over fancy appliances (Man, I’m getting old). When stores like Home Depot, Lowes, or Best Buy offer “No payments and no interest for 12 months”, it’s true, but with an interesting catch. If you don’t pay in full before that 12 months ends, they will charge you back interest for the full price of the purchase from the date of purchase, often at about 20% APR! It doesn’t just start accruing from when the promo period ends.

Here’s an example. You buy a nice stainless steel fridge and oven range for $1,500. You’re happy, paying nothing for 364 days. If you pay it off early, you pay $1,500. If you figure, well, I’ll wait after the whole 12 months is up and then start paying it off, you get to pay $1,800 ($300 more!)
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It’s been a year now since we’ve gotten our kid… err, dog. Cavalier King Charles Spaniel to be exact. I know this because we just had our annual vet appointment for more shots and a general exam. This got me to thinking how much we’ve spent on pet care over the last year. I think many people who get pets fail to realize the financial committment that it requires. They also may underestimate the emotional attachment you get to your pup. I know I did.

Since we broke the $1000 cost barrier only 3 months into having him, we’ve actually settled down to a nice routine with him. Basically all the things we bought, like the crate, bed, leash, nail clippers, etc. were all decent quality and are still working just fine. Here are the rest of our expenses.
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~8%, not bad. At least it’s greater than inflation. I don’t think it takes effect until July, but it’s nice to know it’s coming. To celebrate, we just ordered a new Nissan Xterra SE 4×4 – just kidding! I don’t think we’re going to do anything different at all. How boring.

On that note, I’m following her on a conference trip this week. I’ll still be posting, but my e-mail turnaround time will be even worse than usual…