Record Keeping

It is important to budgeting to keep good records of what your expenses are. I like the computer program quicken it allows for managing and tracking of multiple accounts and seeing that I have several accounts it works well to keep all of them in the same place. Another important feature it has is categories so when you record a transaction you tell the program what category of spending it should put it in. If you use the categories well you can print a report at the end of a month or week or however you like and it will do the totals for you.

Other options for record keeping are bank statements, credit card statements, and the good old balancing the check book act. The best way to use the bank statements or credit card statements would be if all your transactions went through that account so you can see by looking at one paper what expenses you had in a month. This is a fine method of record keeping but you will need to note what the specific purchases fit under as far as categories and then sum up the categories yourself. For the balancing your check book approach that is something that should be happening anyway to check against your bank account but to keep track of your expenses with pencil and paper can be tedious and falls by the wayside easily if you don't stay on top of it.

I use the computer program approach as I mentioned before, but I mix it with the bank statement approach with access to online banking this lets me check against the banks record and do a day to day balancing act. It is a good idea when using the computer approach to use online banking to your advantage to keep up regularly on spending then at the end of the month you can look at your reports and compare them against your budget or use them to create a budget.