How to use the expense tracker
Set it up once at the start of the month. Type the month, and if you have a spending limit in mind, enter it as your budget. Then rename the eight categories so they fit your life. The defaults cover what most households spend on day to day, but you might want Kids, Pets or Gifts as their own line.
Print it and keep it somewhere you will see it, like the fridge, your wallet or next to your keys. Each time you spend, write the date, what it was for, the category and the amount, then add it to the running total. If writing as you go doesn't stick, sit down for five minutes each evening with your bank app and catch up.
You can also type expenses into the boxes above before printing, for example to start the sheet with what you have already spent this month. They print as the first lines, with the running total and category totals filled in.
Why track your spending at all?
A budget is what you plan to spend. An expense tracker is what you actually spend, and the two are rarely the same. Most people have a good idea of their rent and car payment but are surprised by what groceries, takeout and small online orders add up to over a month.
You don't need to cut anything in the first month. Just write it all down. At the end, the category summary shows where the money went, and that is usually enough to show you where to make a change. One month of honest numbers makes your next monthly budget worksheet far more accurate.
At the end of the month
Add up each category in the summary at the bottom, then compare the total with your budget. Look for the one or two categories that were bigger than you expected. Those are the only ones worth working on next month. Trying to cut everything at once rarely lasts.
If a category keeps coming in high, set a weekly limit for it instead of a monthly one. $100 a week for dining out is easier to keep track of than $430 for the month. Whatever you free up can go toward an emergency fund or a debt. The printable emergency fund tracker and the printable debt snowball worksheet help you put it to work, and the savings goal calculator shows how fast it adds up.
For classes and workshops
If you teach personal finance or run a money workshop at a library, school or community program, you are welcome to print and photocopy the tracker. The blank version works well as a take-home exercise: ask everyone to log one week of spending, then talk through which categories surprised them.