Tracking expenses vs Setting a budget

[DaNNy001]

it's good that both are done becayiur use you actually track your expenses and also set a budget as well, tracking your expenses is simply seeing what you have spent so far and even if you made any mistakes or extravagant spending...although both are are important like I said, but the most important is to set a budget because without this you are going to make a lot of mistakes later on in gambling

[abhiseshakana]

On my experience, I making budged after I knowmy routine expenses and income and i get the details in and out money from expenses record.i think beginner need to do record as a basic step to get financial awarenes, sometime for newbie they don't notice any unnecessary expenses and do random shop which cause deficit and quetion mark pop up, where is my money gone ? From record we have data and we can analyse it after that we can make realistic budged which is not too hard to implement. Record very usefull also for fix your cashflow problem. Me my self do both budgeting and also record my expenses but better, everybody also considering cashflow management which actually can help us set budged more precisely.

[Kelvinid]

The main goal of tracking your expenses is to set a budget within your income, and to avoid overspending that could mess up with how you'll manage your income.

So its a necessity to track your expenses because its a powerful way to control your finances by setting a budget that is organized and precised. And it will only be possible by adopting a disciplined approach towards financial management and budgeting.

[TheUltraElite]

The process itself is two step, first you track your expenses, on the basis of that you decide your budget. You cant do the second one without having completed the first one, at least logically speaking. It might be that someone older than you have already been doing that for you over the years.

If not just start tracking expenses for a few months and use each much data to decide on a budget. It will take time but will get smoothened over the months.

[DanWalker]

In my opinion, as long as your spending does not break or exceed your budget, and does not disrupt your overall financial plan. You do not necessarily need to track your expenses to avoid wasting time and stress

On the other hand, if you frequently exceed your budget and disrupt your financial plan. In that case, you definitely need to track your spending to balance your cash flow and adjust your spending habit before it completely disrupts your long term financial plan.


In short, it all depend on each person's financial situation

[ColdLava40]

. No need to track every dollar spent as long as it is within the budget. What do you think? Personally I believe tracking expenses makes us mindful of what we spend the most on and what we should lessen next time. Is it necessary or no?

You want to get a heart attack? Then do this. If you actually calculate every dollar you spend you will find out most times that you can't even remember what it was spent on. Except you somehow add a description. But then it's not necessary.

A good budget will do the job, as you receive your income you already know what to use them for. This way you are going to track your spending much better and easier. There are some other expenses you just don't expect but will come. So you have to be ready..

[crwth]

Tracking your expenses is a good habit to have. Or I thought so. But I recently came across an advice where tracking expenses actually does nothing for you but rather what we should do is just set a budget for every month. No need to track every dollar spent as long as it is within the budget. What do you think? Personally I believe tracking expenses makes us mindful of what we spend the most on and what we should lessen next time. Is it necessary or no?

I think you have it wrong. You need to track expenses so something could happen to youto you. Tracking expenses is useful to anyone because you know where the money is going, so you can adjust what you need and set a budget. It is necessary if you want to be richer in the long run.

[Kelward]

Tracking your expenses is a good habit to have. Or I thought so. But I recently came across an advice where tracking expenses actually does nothing for you but rather what we should do is just set a budget for every month. No need to track every dollar spent as long as it is within the budget. What do you think? Personally I believe tracking expenses makes us mindful of what we spend the most on and what we should lessen next time. Is it necessary or no?

Tracking expenses and making budgets are both very important in personal finance but for effective financial management you should set up your budget first then track the expenses. If you make expenses that you will later track without first having a budget for the expenditure you will likely be overspending on things that are of less importance to you. But with budget you will priotize your needs and decide how much goes into every expenses that you have, you will even find out that there are some expenses that are not necessary for you. Allocate money for important expenses after that you can start to track them to know if you are spending wisely.

[michellee]

We needs to set a budget and also tracking our expenses. If we tracking our expenses and that can be lessen, we will have more money that we can uses for other things.

We can reset the money allocation if we can do better to our expenses and we will see the chances to saving the money by reducing the expenses.

With tracking expenses, we can be able to manages our income better. But it will depends on each person because they will have consideration to do that.

[Maslate]

In my opinion, as long as your spending does not break or exceed your budget, and does not disrupt your overall financial plan. You do not necessarily need to track your expenses to avoid wasting time and stress

On the other hand, if you frequently exceed your budget and disrupt your financial plan. In that case, you definitely need to track your spending to balance your cash flow and adjust your spending habit before it completely disrupts your long term financial plan.


In short, it all depend on each person's financial situation

We don't just track our expenses to stick on our budget, but we also do it to assess if we are still spending wisely and smartly. Because we will not be aware of our spending habit if we'll just stick on our budget, but we need to track our expenses, track where our money goes so that we will know if we are still making a good and profitable buy, or we are just spending because our financial status allows it.

Personally, both should be done to avoid financial issues in the future, and prevent from going through financial crisis and struggles.

[knowngunman]

Tracking your expenses is a good habit to have. Or I thought so. But I recently came across an advice where tracking expenses actually does nothing for you but rather what we should do is just set a budget for every month. No need to track every dollar spent as long as it is within the budget. What do you think? Personally I believe tracking expenses makes us mindful of what we spend the most on and what we should lessen next time. Is it necessary or no?

What's the essence of tracking when there's no budget? Without budget, it means you can spend as much as possible, your expenses is endless without limitation. Budget on the other hand guide you on your spending habits. What to spend on and how much to spend is generally cover by budget. You first of all need to have a budget and then follow it up with tracking to avoid spending out of your budget. Both budget and tracking expenses work hand in hand to get a perfect result. Even with budget, if you don't track your expenses you might end up spending more than your budget or outside from your budget. You definitely need to the two.

[Agbamoni]

Tracking your expenses is a good habit to have. Or I thought so. But I recently came across an advice where tracking expenses actually does nothing for you but rather what we should do is just set a budget for every month. No need to track every dollar spent as long as it is within the budget. What do you think? Personally I believe tracking expenses makes us mindful of what we spend the most on and what we should lessen next time. Is it necessary or no?

Both are important to me. Setting a budget, at the same time tracking each expense under the budget, helps us to make good financial decisions.

When set budget only, you only know the limit you wont cross, but you wont be aware of your expenses. Most times, you dont know if you are within your limit or have exceeded it if you don't track every expense. As an economist, for you to effectively manage your finances, you will need both in several areas of your life.

[jaberwock]

We have been doing this with my wife for a while now, and there is a good chance that we can be getting quite rich in the few years in the future. I think it will take a couple years, but looking at how things are changing for us, unless we do some stupid shopping or spending or anything unexpected happens, then things are looking very bright for our future.

Between me earning more hopefully and her keep making what she makes, we will be doing more income, and then we track our expenses and figured out it was take out food that spends the most, and then of course some stuff that we had to deal with that was unavoidable, all of that is gone now, and we are going to be living a lot better with a budget now.

[junder]

Tracking your expenses is a good habit to have. Or I thought so. But I recently came across an advice where tracking expenses actually does nothing for you but rather what we should do is just set a budget for every month. No need to track every dollar spent as long as it is within the budget. What do you think? Personally I believe tracking expenses makes us mindful of what we spend the most on and what we should lessen next time. Is it necessary or no?

Recording expenses is one of the most useful things, regardless of whether they are important or not. I have an older sister who is very observant about her spending, which allows her to manage her finances well. Although we can probably manage our finances well without recording expenses, I believe recording expenses also has its benefits. For example, it increases financial awareness, or in other words, it fosters the habit of appreciating money, not being wasteful, and making wiser decisions about spending.

[bakasabo]

I do tracking expenses for a long time, but I can only set budget on large expenses. For example I can set that I want to spend on vacation not more than 3k and I search for best hotel/day/departure, arrival time. But I can not set budget for food. I dont know how to manage not more than 1k per month on food without tracking expenses. I cant go doing groceries with only 100 in my pocket or calculate in mind all purchases not to exceed 100 at check out.

[Synchronice]

Tracking your expenses is a good habit to have. Or I thought so. But I recently came across an advice where tracking expenses actually does nothing for you but rather what we should do is just set a budget for every month. No need to track every dollar spent as long as it is within the budget. What do you think? Personally I believe tracking expenses makes us mindful of what we spend the most on and what we should lessen next time. Is it necessary or no?

I don't agree with the tracking expenses approach because it sucks to look at price tags when you go to the supermarket and are unable to buy whatever you want. Also, at some point, it leaves you in a comfort zone. I do not track my expanses and instead, I focus on my income. If my expanses are higher than my income, then for me, the problem is my income, not expanses, so I focus on improving my income as much as possible. High price tags give me more motivation to work on myself instead of working on doing more savings.

[Strongkored]

Tracking your expenses is a good habit to have. Or I thought so. But I recently came across an advice where tracking expenses actually does nothing for you but rather what we should do is just set a budget for every month. No need to track every dollar spent as long as it is within the budget. What do you think? Personally I believe tracking expenses makes us mindful of what we spend the most on and what we should lessen next time. Is it necessary or no?

Tracking expenses is useful in my opinion, at least we become aware of where we are overspending and can make improvements. Setting a budget is also good, but when combined with tracking expenses it allows us to finally understand which expenditures can be reduced. With the economy becoming increasingly difficult, tracking expenses also makes us realise that our income needs to be increased.

[Altryist]

Tracking your expenses is a good habit to have. Or I thought so. But I recently came across an advice where tracking expenses actually does nothing for you but rather what we should do is just set a budget for every month. No need to track every dollar spent as long as it is within the budget. What do you think? Personally I believe tracking expenses makes us mindful of what we spend the most on and what we should lessen next time. Is it necessary or no?

If you manage your budget wisely, there is no need to track for every single purchase. I believe this approach to budgeting is more than sufficient, because being overly meticulous about every dollar spent is first petty, and second requires extra time that could be used for something more productive. Simply plan your budget, save, invest, and sensibly allocate the remaining funds for your personal needs.

[BALIK]

Tracking your expenses is a good habit to have. Or I thought so. But I recently came across an advice where tracking expenses actually does nothing for you but rather what we should do is just set a budget for every month. No need to track every dollar spent as long as it is within the budget. What do you think? Personally I believe tracking expenses makes us mindful of what we spend the most on and what we should lessen next time. Is it necessary or no?

I don't agree with the tracking expenses approach because it sucks to look at price tags when you go to the supermarket and are unable to buy whatever you want. Also, at some point, it leaves you in a comfort zone. I do not track my expanses and instead, I focus on my income. If my expanses are higher than my income, then for me, the problem is my income, not expanses, so I focus on improving my income as much as possible. High price tags give me more motivation to work on myself instead of working on doing more savings.

I agree with you that we should focus on increasing our income instead of spending too much time saving. Because inflation is spiraling out of control and rising rapidly, saving will become pointless someday. However, is increasing income easy? Obviously, that is not easy and it takes time.

Therefore, in the process of increasing income, taking the time to track expenses and create a budget is absolutely essential. It not only helps us control cash flow and avoid disrupting our financial plan, but also creates good financial habit

Honestly, I have never seen anyone become wealthy and financially stable without good financial habit and discipline. But I have seen many young people with high incomes still struggling financially. The reason is that they earn a lot of money, but can't keep it because they lack good financial habit

[Dunamisx]

If budget is that important, then we have to understand the need to also track on our daily or monthly expenses and have an inventory for them, so that we can revert back to them later know what we have spent our money on, it also very good for reference purpose, we cant be spending without setting a budget or keeping a record of the money flow.