Of course it’s only right that you indulge yourself using your hard-earned money. After all, isn’t one of the reasons why we choose to work is so that we can afford to buy ourselves what we want? But, you must remember that when you’re finally at a certain age that requires you to start living on your own or help out in the paying of household bills, handling your finances tend to be more of a strictly prioritized subject and treating yourself, a much later thought.

However, you still can reward yourself. You just have to be smart about what you do with your money and to do so, we prepare 11+ Money Tracker Samples that can help you in managing your finances so that you can still have the funds to indulge yourself. 

11+ Sample Money Trackers

What is a Money Tracker?

As the name suggests, a money tracker keeps track of your money, where it goes and more so where it needs to go as opposed to where you want it to go. It records your monthly expenses and your daily spending thus giving you an omniscient overview about your financial activities. This way, you can determine what you can spend on based on what you earn. 

Why Do You Need to Track Your Money?

In all the things that we do, it’s always useful to ask the why’s behind why we do something. In doing so, we understand and get a better grasp of why we do things and use it as positive reinforcement to keep doing it.

One reason why a money tracker could be considered is for when you decide to live on your own and provide for yourself. Especially for the first-borns in an Asian household, it is expected of you to help out in any family-related business. And should you have younger siblings, you might even be obliged to finance their education. Cost of living is already expensive as it is and it’s just going to get even more expensive as the years go by. Add your family obligations, then get ready for financial-induced breakdowns sneaking its way into your daily routines. In fact, according to the American Psychological Association (APA), prior to the pandemic 72% of Americans deal with financial stress at some point in their lives. We can only assume there might be a slight raise in the percentage due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global economy. On a lighter note, some other reasons why you could resort to employing a money tracker is because there is probably a goal you want to achieve in this lifetime. It could be a car you’ve always wanted to drive around, your own house you just always used to admire in one of those house flyers or that vacation you’ve always daydreamed of that you have created a travel itinerary for it. All these reasons have one thing in common, enough money on-hand to readily fund these goals while still leaving enough money in your savings. As the saying goes, there is no such thing as free lunch. 

How to Begin With Your Money Tracker as a Beginner

It would be encouraged that you have a financial adviser you can communicate to really start your money tracker on an effective note. If that’s not an option for now, you can start with some of these basic steps to begin your Money Tracker experience.

Honesty: To better monitor your expenses, you must be aware of how you spend your money and where it goes and to do so, you must be honest about what you do with your money. Facing the reality is scary when it comes to dealing with money but as money trackers are intended to help solve money problems and avoid more in the future, it’s best to be transparent about the numbers we input in our trackers.Record Everything: This would probably be the first step in starting your money tracker and an essential one at that. Collect receipts and bank statements, gather your loan statements, keep a checklist of your bills. This way you can record your money spending habits, distinguish the good habits that you can keep and hopefully improve on, from the bad ones that you need to get rid of, keep a track sheet of your expenses and make the necessary adjustments to stick to the budget. Set Up A Budget: There are numerous budgeting methods that you can adopt and even personalize in accordance to your monthly income and expenses. Once you pick one, understand its process so you can come up with a close estimate for your monthly household budget.

FAQs

How to track my spending?

A common step in tracking your spending that applies to all those that want to adopt a Money Tracker for themselves, be it an expert or a beginner, is listing down your daily expenses and your monthly bills.

What is the best money tracker app?

There are numerous application sites available for you to choose from when it comes to the best money tracker. Do note that a money tracker just makes things convenient for you. It still boils down to your diligence in keeping track of your expenses and your commitment to your budget

How Do I Find Out Where My Money Goes?

You may use a Money Tracker to monitor where your money goes.

Let’s not forget that the process of saving is no easy task. It’s not enough that you understand the importance of having money and the value of money itself. And regardless if you’ve got an inkling on how to best save your money, there’s more to it than just setting some of it aside. It involves strategic approaches and long and careful hours of recording your expenses but it all boils down to a determination to commit to your Money Tracker in the sense that you avoid relapsing into your bad habits and you constantly log your purchases and expenses with transparency. It will seem like a taxing task but remember your why’s and it will be worth it in the end.