How detailed are you on tracking expenses, budgeting, etc.?

[AestheticsInMotion]

Three weeks ago I calculated my daily food costs based on an ideal (for me) diet with the goal of being -

• cheap

• healthy

• easy to find at any grocery store

• simple cooking processes

• long shelf life for all but fresh produce

The prices I used reflect non-sale prices of generic brand food in "standard" supermarkets (Fred Meyer, Safeway, QFC, etc.). This is the baseline, with opportunity to reduce expenses by buying in bulk when there's a sale, ordering food from Amazon when prices fluctuate, checking Costco.... Whatever.

And here's some data on pricing...

A few things stick out to me. I'm using one of the cheaper protein powders available, and buying 10 pound bags to save money. Even so... The cost of protein powder is triple that of eggs and chicken, per gram of protein. Looking at that, I see an opportunity to replace some of my protein intake with more chicken, which would be better for my health, and better for my wallet. Say I completely swapped out protein powder for more chicken. My daily cost would immediately drop from $9.81 to $7.91. That one change represents $15,000 of savings over the next 20 years!

Alternatively, I could replace that daily amount of protein powder with 2 eggs per day. Protein intake would drop, but total caloric intake would be the same given how fatty eggs are. That small change would result in a projected $20,000 saving over the next twenty years. More even, as more than any other item on this list eggs receive aggressive sales, commonly bringing their per unit price down by as much as 50%.

If I take that mindset and apply it to every other part of the food budget, I might be able to double that $20k figure. Triple it. Who knows. Sounds like a fun way to spend a few hours once the weekend rolls around!

[e90m3]

@aestheticsinmotion I have a detailed spread sheet where I track the costs of just the 3 series. Other than that, I know what I can spend, and what I want to save each month and kind of go from there. Definitely have not been that great about minimizing expenses.

[AestheticsInMotion]

@e90m3 said in How detailed are you on tracking expenses, budgeting, etc.?:

@aestheticsinmotion I have a detailed spread sheet where I track the costs of just the 3 series. Other than that, I know what I can spend, and what I want to save each month and kind of go from there. Definitely have not been that great about minimizing expenses.

No M3 spreadsheet?

Oddly enough, vehicle expenses are what I'm doing the worst job of tracking at the moment. Although with a $7 tank of gas every 2-3 weeks and zero maintenance it's not a huge priority I suppose...

[LooseonExit]

@AestheticsInMotion Very. We have a pretty strict budget. But I don't do cost analysis on groceries. We tend to eat more expensive foods (organic, grass fed, etc) and heavily vegetarian which is somehow costlier. If I mentioned how much we spent on groceries last year, some Oppo might have a cardiac event...like me lol.

[ItalianJobR53]

@aestheticsinmotion I used to have a kinda crappy spreadsheet tracking expenses but I overhauled it over the last weekend with categories, pivot tables, charts, etc
Lets see how it works out now...I would like to buy a house by the end of the year.

[Wrong Wheel Drive]

Optimum Whey is currently $36 at Costco for the 80 serving bag. I have usually considered $50 a great price for that so it's quite the deal. That usually lasts me most of the year.

I don't budget at all. My girlfriend is a budgeting finatic though, with her zero based budgets and all that. I am just focusing on maxing out Roth, checking up on my 401k, and investing short term in s&p500 instead of saving due to horrible interest rates. I'm trying to automate my money moving around so that I don't have to budget at all.

[Peter_Black]

not at all. I just started tracking expenses and money in and out this year.

[AestheticsInMotion]

@looseonexit said in How detailed are you on tracking expenses, budgeting, etc.?:

@AestheticsInMotion Very. We have a pretty strict budget. But I don't do cost analysis on groceries. We tend to eat more expensive foods (organic, grass fed, etc) and heavily vegetarian which is somehow costlier. If I mentioned how much we spent on groceries last year, some Oppo might have a cardiac event...like me lol.

Yeah... I avoided going over my food expenses for the past 6 months. It's somewhat depressing how many Craigslist vehicles I could have purchased if I had kept groceries and takeout costs down.

I'm planning on doing a similar breakdown of my current groceries, but with all organic options. It's... Unfortunate how big of a price difference there is.

[sony1492]

@aestheticsinmotion significantly less fancy where I took notes off of 2 bank statements then try to whittle costs down to meet my goals, food and gas are the only non-fixed costs so saving more is a matter of working more/ getting paid better. Cutting $100 out of the monthly food cost can be too limiting to save $1200 over a year.

[Wrong Wheel Drive]

@aestheticsinmotion said in How detailed are you on tracking expenses, budgeting, etc.?:

@looseonexit said in How detailed are you on tracking expenses, budgeting, etc.?:

@AestheticsInMotion Very. We have a pretty strict budget. But I don't do cost analysis on groceries. We tend to eat more expensive foods (organic, grass fed, etc) and heavily vegetarian which is somehow costlier. If I mentioned how much we spent on groceries last year, some Oppo might have a cardiac event...like me lol.

Yeah... I avoided going over my food expenses for the past 6 months. It's somewhat depressing how many Craigslist vehicles I could have purchased if I had kept groceries and takeout costs down.

I'm planning on doing a similar breakdown of my current groceries, but with all organic options. It's... Unfortunate how big of a price difference there is.

I'm curious, how much did you spend on groceries? I eat out maybe once a month and that's always fast food while on the road somewhere. Otherwise 100% cook my own meals, no take out/delivery at all. I feel like I spend a lot on groceries but I'm sure its way lower than you lol. I'm around $300 per month for just me, so under 4k per year for all food.

[AestheticsInMotion]

@wrong-wheel-drive said in How detailed are you on tracking expenses, budgeting, etc.?:

Optimum Whey is currently $36 at Costco for the 80 serving bag. I have usually considered $50 a great price for that so it's quite the deal. That usually lasts me most of the year.

I don't budget at all. My girlfriend is a budgeting finatic though, with her zero based budgets and all that. I am just focusing on maxing out Roth, checking up on my 401k, and investing short term instead of saving due to horrible interest rates. I'm trying to automate my money moving around so that I don't have to budget at all.

Hmm, that sounds like an amazing price. I normalize all of my serving sizes for protein-based foods on 30g of protein, and unfortunately protein powders all have their own proprietary serving size. Talk about first world problems!

Your strategy sounds similar to mine, except I'm moving away from automation simply because I love playing with the numbers!

[Boxer_4]

@aestheticsinmotion I don’t really hard budget - I have soft caps on each budget category and try to stick below them, but I don’t detail each category beyond that cap.

I do track all account activity (including cash) in HomeBank (free software). I’ve been doing so for about 3.5 years now, and it’s been helpful on keeping a fuller financial picture.

[Wrong Wheel Drive]

@aestheticsinmotion said in How detailed are you on tracking expenses, budgeting, etc.?:

@wrong-wheel-drive said in How detailed are you on tracking expenses, budgeting, etc.?:

Optimum Whey is currently $36 at Costco for the 80 serving bag. I have usually considered $50 a great price for that so it's quite the deal. That usually lasts me most of the year.

I don't budget at all. My girlfriend is a budgeting finatic though, with her zero based budgets and all that. I am just focusing on maxing out Roth, checking up on my 401k, and investing short term instead of saving due to horrible interest rates. I'm trying to automate my money moving around so that I don't have to budget at all.

Hmm, that sounds like an amazing price. I normalize all of my serving sizes for protein-based foods on 30g of protein, and unfortunately protein powders all have their own proprietary serving size. Talk about first world problems!

Your strategy sounds similar to mine, except I'm moving away from automation simply because I love playing with the numbers!

Yeah I just had to buy it even though my current bag still has a bit left. And I really need to manage my money better but I can't stand budgeting. I had recently listened to the book "The Latte Effect" and I really liked the suggestion of "don't budget, automate". Budgets always fail eventually when self discipline is required. So I'd rather budget once and automate everything forever from there. I'm always haphazardly throwing money into savings or investing where some months it's zero and others it's a few thousand. Considering my income is 100% the same every month, that's quite an inefficient way to do it.

[HoustonRunner]

@looseonexit Re: grocery bills - I wouldn't. Our household is 6 - me, my wife, 14 and 12 year old daughters, and 10 YEAR OLD TWIN BOYS. They aren't even at peak eating age yet (from my recollection it was from about 12-22 years old), but they can put away some food.
I'm not complaining, the food bills do not strain our budget, but given the green light they would drink 1/2 gallon of milk a day. At least. Each.

[e90m3]

@aestheticsinmotion I thought about it when I got the car, but I really didn't want to know what it costs. The lion share of the costs was absorbed back in 2014/2015, aka paying the car off, so for the most costs is a few years behind me.

[PowderHound]

@aestheticsinmotion I am extremely terrible at it. As in, I don’t budget whatsoever. In my head I’m smart enough to not go blow a ton of money every week on silly things or steaks every night. I try and set vague goals of “save more this year” but I have no idea what I saved last year. I really need to do better but then I look at something like your short spread sheet and I realize I hate working with numbers

[davesaddiction]

@wrong-wheel-drive

The decision to make 401k contributions automatic (at least to get the max company match) has greatly contributed to the long-term financial stability of many workers in the past few decades... Inertia (and compounding interest) are powerful forces.

Much harder to spend money that never shows up in your bank account.

[AestheticsInMotion]

@houstonrunner said in How detailed are you on tracking expenses, budgeting, etc.?:

@looseonexit Re: grocery bills - I wouldn't. Our household is 6 - me, my wife, 14 and 12 year old daughters, and 10 YEAR OLD TWIN BOYS. They aren't even at peak eating age yet (from my recollection it was from about 12-22 years old), but they can put away some food.
I'm not complaining, the food bills do not strain our budget, but given the green light they would drink 1/2 gallon of milk a day. At least. Each.

Ha, yeah in your case I might avoid doing so... It's scary what teenagers can eat

[CarsOfFortLangley]

Extremely, I track everything over time, category, merchant and amount via Mint.

[AestheticsInMotion]

@carsoffortlangley said in How detailed are you on tracking expenses, budgeting, etc.?:

Extremely, I track everything over time, category, merchant and amount via Mint.

I started with mint about two years ago, but it always disconnected from my bank accounts or didn't recognize my credit cards, so I ended up pulling the plug and setting up my own system to track everything. The only thing I'm missing is the fancy infographics

[CarsOfFortLangley]

It's had the occasional issue with my accounts, but I check it every day and it's never totally fucked me up.

It even syncs with my mortgage company

[EssExTee]

@aestheticsinmotion Food is quite cheap if you're willing to buy stuff in bulk and eat the same thing for every meal every day

[TexturedSoyProtein]

I am not this detailed with budgeting at all. I could never do it with food in particular because food is one of my main forms of entertainment. I just do it in a hippie healthy way.

My "budget" consists more of guidelines:

1. Claw my way up the corporate ladder for those dolla dolla bills
2. Automatic 401k contributions
3. All bills on autopay
4. Buy everything on credit cards and pay them off every month
5. Plan out weekly meals and buy ingredients from the cheapest available stores.
6. Try as much as possible to not go to restaurants, but don't fuss over it so much when it inevitably happens
7. Limit discretionary purchases as much as possible and whatever it is I might be buying discretionarily, get the cheapest/best one so I'll keep it for a long time

[beefchips]

@aestheticsinmotion said in How detailed are you on tracking expenses, budgeting, etc.?:

Say I completely swapped out protein powder for more chicken. My daily cost would immediately drop from $9.81 to $7.91. That one change represents $15,000 of savings over the next 20 years!

Oh man, that sounds so bleak, I would just cry if I had to eat the same thing every week for 20 years!

More seriously though, have you used Mint or another automated tracking/budgeting tool? It's good way to get an idea where money is going without a lot of hassle. You do have to trust it with your bank login details so that it can get your transactions. But the upside is it clearly breaks down purchases in categories, you can teach it what each merchant is if it doesn't recognize it already (rare), and it's really good satisfaction and motivation to see your budgets and savings goals right there at hand. I've used Mint for a few years now and it's pretty gratifying to track that "net worth" curve going upwards!

[beefchips]

@aestheticsinmotion said in How detailed are you on tracking expenses, budgeting, etc.?:

@carsoffortlangley said in How detailed are you on tracking expenses, budgeting, etc.?:

Extremely, I track everything over time, category, merchant and amount via Mint.

I started with mint about two years ago, but it always disconnected from my bank accounts or didn't recognize my credit cards, so I ended up pulling the plug and setting up my own system to track everything. The only thing I'm missing is the fancy infographics

Intuit (the owning company) have been making a lot of improvements on that front recently, I think they're explicitly working with other institutions to make it seamless.