Tracking expenses vs Setting a budget

[Nahl]

If the purposes want to saving money from monthly salaries i think setting the budget is most important rather than tracking your expenses because with if you were setting your budget especially for monthly budget and not spend money for necessary things and discipline to implementing it i think it's not necessary anymore to calculate your expenses for each month because automatically you will have the ability to accumulate your money

[demonica]

Isn't it pretty much the same? When you track your expenses, you'll come to a point that "Ah! I've already spent a lot of money this month", so you start setting a budget you can only spend anymore since you've already spent a lot.

While for setting a limit, you'd also end up tracking your expenses a bit to know whether you already exceeded the budget you set or if you still have extra that you can spend.

But if I'm gonna choose, I'd probably choose setting a budget. I believe, it would be less workload. And when you set a budget, you already have a specific limit so it means you would usually think over and over before you buy something. I think it's good for managing your finances. You start weighing whether it is essential or not.

[Shadiq]

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?

It may be wise to set a budget for our daily expenses. Because, by tracking expenses, you will only get a statistic of the expenses and be aware of the expenses. If you fail to control yourself, then tracking expenses may not be of any use.

But setting a budget forces you to be careful about your expenses and limited in planning. Even setting a budget will help you maintain discipline and learn discipline. Because you have to go through a set period with a set fund, which will force you to be accountable for every expense.

[cxtreenal]

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?

Set a weekly budget and buy items to meet your basic needs. If you decide to spend, you will be able to live within a limited budget. Spending as long as you can afford it is a luxury. Keep your spending in line with your income. By tracking your spending you can reduce the rate of unnecessary spending to a great extent. The purpose of this strategy is not to determine where you are spending too much money but to set a specific limit for your spending.

[GIF-JOBS]

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?

It may be wise to set a budget for our daily expenses. Because, by tracking expenses, you will only get a statistic of the expenses and be aware of the expenses. If you fail to control yourself, then tracking expenses may not be of any use.

But setting a budget forces you to be careful about your expenses and limited in planning. Even setting a budget will help you maintain discipline and learn discipline. Because you have to go through a set period with a set fund, which will force you to be accountable for every expense.

Ultimately, it depends only on ourselves, budget tracking makes us aware, but the whole point of following them correctly depends entirely on us. If we are not aware of ourselves and careful about our spending, bad tracking will not be of any use to us, because eventually we will exceed our limitations. That is why we must first learn to maintain control, be careful about financial management. To live with a certain amount of funds at a certain time, we have to think before each expense, and from there awareness and self-control develop, as a result of which our unnecessary waste is greatly reduced, as a result we are able to save something despite our low income.

[slapper]

Tracking is for people that like to feel in control even when they're not. You're not changing behavior, you're just documenting behavior with better tools. It's the financial equivalent of buying running shoes, but not running. The preparation process becomes the substitute of the thing itself.

Budgeting sounds better because it's in the future but most budgets are just wishes with numbers attached..

The advice to "just stay within budget" makes an assumption that you have buffer. Takes it for granted that things won't happen that you don't expect them to (which they do, all the time). Assumes that your budget takes into account the psychological fact that sometimes you spend the money because you're sad or stressed or the world is heavy and a $7 coffee is the only thing you could control that day.

You can do perfect tracking, totally responsible budgeting and still be broke because there's no optimization hack for rent eating 50% of your income.