Spending Less is Rewarding

"You can't manage what you can't measure."  Are you tracking your spending?  No?  Then you aren't really managing it.

We have tried various tools to track my spending, but in December we started using Mint.com.  I worried that when Intuit bought them that they would go downhill.  Not so.  It is a great tool, still.  I use the web tool and Android app dozens of times each month.  Here are the results:

Now, I know that there are still 9 days left in the month of May, but I think you can see a trend.  Of course, being able to track the spending is only part of the equation, but for us it was critical because we realized that big expenses (cable, car loans, gym memberships, etc.) had already been cut.  The change that you see graphed above is because we cut the small stuff.  Every month we had literally hundreds of $5-10 items such as lunches out and shopping cart fillers.  We were able to use Mint to see where these small charges were occurring and eliminate them.  Best move ever!

I did not use the words "quick" or "easy", although Mint.com might be the quickest and easiest.  After 6 months, it now run on autopilot.  But it took a while to make sure the numbers were reporting reality.

Give it a try.  Start today.  It is all part of having a plan to be free of debt.