Thrifty Thursday: Keeping Track

Having managed to save more than I thought would be possible during my final year of university, I feel spurred on to share some of my successful experiences with you.

I can’t imagine that I will ever lead a frivolous lifestyle (unless I win the lottery, I can think of plenty of ways to be frivolous if that was the case..!) but I understand that constantly being thrifty isn’t for everyone. It’s inevitable though (unless you have won the lottery) that at some point you will want to be a little more careful with money to save up for a new car, house or whatever else you’ve been dreaming of, so I hope these tips can help.

Keeping track of the money that you’re spending is one of the most important tasks when saving, however it can also be the most boring and tedious. For me I’ve found the perfect way of keeping track without having to spend hours at a time staring at spreadsheets and internet banking statements. 

There are two ways of spending – debit/credit cards and cash. There’s much debate about which is better than the other, some say with cash you can see what you’re spending but you’re less likely to spend, and others think that having to take a debit card out of your purse and pop in your pin is more of a deterrent to spending. 

I decided to compromise. I make any ‘big’ purchases (fuel, food, clothing etc.) on a card and ‘small’ purchases (magazines, coffee etc.) with cash. This means that when I open my bank statement I can clearly see what I have spent without having to trawl through pages and pages of transactions for things like 60p on some chewing gum and £2 on that magazine that had a free gift too good to resist. It also means that I can set myself a budget to spend on non-necessities and make sure it lasts me the week whilst I am free to buy things like food on my card and keep a track of them on my bank statement.

I find this method really useful and it encourages me to think before I start spending on the small things because I can see how much cash I have left for the rest of the week. I still check my online banking every few days just to keep an eye on what’s going on and to remind myself where the majority of my money goes. I also have a spreadsheet but I’m sure that’s for everyone and that could be a whole other post…!

How do you keep track of your money?

Jade Rebecca

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