Video: How to Track Your Expenses

This Season: Tailgating; New Year, New You; Tax Time

Professional budget advice you can't miss! Learn how to track your expenses when setting up a budget for personal finances in this free online video tutorial.

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Video Transcript

Now we need to start with the heart of our budget, tracking and expenses. There are some great tools out there to help you in this department which we will talk about later. We are briefly going to touch on the good old fashioned way which may prove to be the best way for some people. Start by getting all your records together for the past 12 months including pay stubs, loan proceeds, withdrawal slips, canceled checks and itemized credit card statements. Then go through them and compile totals of your income and expenses in a set up categories that make sense for you. At the end of this exercise, you may still have a sizable lump of spending that is undocumented. Typically the money you withdraw in cash and then spend on day to day needs. If this portion of your budget seems to be getting out of hand, keep a journal for the next 4 weeks in which you record every nickel you spend. You can use those results to estimate and fill in how your cash is being spent throughout the year. Watch out for cash leakage though. It withdraws from the ATM Machine and evaporates from your pocket without an apparent explanation. It is time to keep better records. In general, if you find yourself returning to the ATM once a week or so, you need to examine where that cash is going and as always, don't forget to tie yourself. Aim to spend no more than 90 percent of your income. That way you will have the other 10 percent left to save for your big picture items.

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How to Track Your Expenses

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