How To Set Up Your First Monthly Expense Tracker

You may be surprised to know that there are very few people that keep tabs on their monthly expenses. A lot of people will just spend cash without accounting for it, which really impacts savings potential. This is when using a monthly expense tracker becomes important.

A monthly expense tracker can help you to plan a budget. It can even help you to know exactly where you are overspending. Thankfully, using one isn't as difficult as you may think. Let us walk you through the process and cover how getting a Texas payday loan can help you with urgent expenses you haven’t accounted for.

How To Use A Monthly Expense Tracker

Use A Spreadsheet

There is a lot of software out there designed to be effective monthly expense trackers. While you can buy these, there is a far more affordable solution.

You can use a good old-fashioned spreadsheet like Microsoft Excel. Or, if you want to save money because you don't own Microsoft Office, you could use Open Office.

Spreadsheets help to keep things simple, and you can do a surprising amount with the data that you have recorded. Since this is going to be your first monthly expense tracker, you just need to have the following category headings:

• Date.
• Name of Expense (the place where you made a purchase).
• Origin of expense (credit card, bank account, cash, etc).
• Expense category (more on this below).
• Amount of money spent.

You can have your spreadsheet a bit more advanced than this if you want. However, this is a good enough way to start. By starting off too complicated, you may run into an issue where you simply cannot be bothered to record anything. Your whole aim here is to get into the habit of actually recording everything that you spend. 

Categorize Your Expenses 

When you are setting up your monthly expense tracker, you need to think about categorizing your expenses. You can categorize them based on your own personal preference. However, these are some suggestions:

• Mortgage.
• Loans.
• Insurance.
• Food.
• Entertainment.
• Clothing.
• Subscriptions (Netflix, gym, magazine, and so on).
• Medical expenses.

The more specific you get with your categories, the easier it will be to see your excessive spending. 

Note Regular Expenses

To the best of your ability, when you start to make your first monthly expense tracker, we suggest that you write down regular expenses that you have to deal with. This means subscriptions, mortgage repayments, etc. You may not be able to cover everything. However, try to think of as many of them as possible. You can check past statements to get a better idea.

If you know when your regular expenses are being paid and the amount that you are paying, you can pre-fill them in on your monthly expense tracker.

Make A Note Of Outgoing Expenses 

If you are going to be putting together your first monthly expense tracker, you need to ensure that you are committing to the tracker. You can't take a half-hearted approach here. Absolutely every single one of your expenses needs to be recorded in the tracker. Bought a coffee for $2? Make a note of it.

The goal of a monthly expense tracker is to allow you to keep tabs on all of your spending. That is the only way that you will be able to identify whether you are spending too much money and where that excess cash is being spent.

Check Your Bank Statements Regularly 

Once a week, we suggest that you go through your bank statements and credit card statements. This way you can find any expenses that you may have missed. You will be surprised at the number of people that have regular expenses coming out of their bank account that they never knew about. For example, an old video streaming service that they forgot about, a magazine subscription they no longer want, etc.

If you check your statements regularly, then you will likely never miss an expense. If you are paying with cash, then keep that receipt.

Trim Excessive Expenses 

There is no sense in putting together a monthly expense tracker if you do not really intend to do anything with it. The whole reason why somebody would want to track their expenses is to see where they are overspending and trim the fat.

As you go through your monthly expenses, it probably won't be too long before you start to see expenses that you can really cut back on. This may mean excessive eating out. It may mean a couple of coffees a day. Many people can find that they will be able to free up a lot of cash with a bit of tinkering about with their budget.

Deal with Unforeseen Expenses

While the whole goal of your monthly expense tracker is to help ensure that you do not overspend. It is inevitable that there will be expenses that appear from time to time that simply cannot be covered by whatever is left with your monthly budget.

This may be a car repair, dealing with a broken appliance, or even a bill that you may have missed for some reason. Therefore, it is always wise to have some sort of backup option to help you get those expenses dealt with. Payday loans Texas offers are one option to consider in this case.

What Is A Payday Loan?

A Texas payday loan is a short-term loan. With this type of loan, you will be borrowing a small sum of cash. As the name suggests, the idea is that these loans are usually paid off by the time your next payday rolls around. These loans can often be obtained in as little as 30-minutes of applying.

How A Texas Payday Loan Can Help?

A payday loan is a quick way to cover unexpected expenses. And since you will be paying it back quickly, by the time your next payday rolls around, you will have the loan covered.

At Texas Car Title and Payday Loan Services, Inc., we ensure that qualifying for a payday loan is simple. As long as you have the ability to pay back the loan on time, your credit history won't matter.

This means that Texas payday loans can be obtained by people that have poor or non-existent credit. All you need is a driver's license or state-issued ID coupled with a recent payday stub and a blank check from an active checking account under your name. 

To get started, head over to Texas Car Title and Payday Loan Services, Inc. and fill out a short intake form. Soon after, a loan representative will contact you to provide further instructions and schedule a meeting with you.

Make sure to take the required items to the meeting so the loan representative can inspect them. If you get approved, you can finish the paperwork and get your money in as little as 30 minutes.

Looking To Deal With Unexpected Expenses? 

Using a monthly expense tracker can help you save more money and cut needless costs. But if you’re looking for a quick way to deal with an unexpected expense and you’d like to find a reliable Texas payday loan company, head on over to Texas Car Title and Payday Loan Services, Inc.

You can borrow up to $1,200 in as little as 30-minutes. Helping you to cover any of those one-off sudden expenses.

Note: The content provided in this article is only for informational purposes, and you should contact your financial advisor about your specific financial situation.