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.

[colinistheman]

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.

But for those who cannot control themselves, it is even more important to track their spending. Because that way, they know what they have spent their money on, where the money has gone, and despite having a budget, they still keep breaking their own budget. By tracking their spending, they can identify unnecessary expenses and adjust their spending habit before the situation worsens.

For those who cannot control themselves, budgeting and tracking expenses is essential.

[HyperCodexV]

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 once tried to track my expenses and somehow I stopped along the way because I became so mindful of how I spend my money to the extent I stopped buying things that are basic necessities for my daily needs. Tracking expenses is good,d but it comes with a negative impact because it makes you want to save even when you have to spend.

[wozzek23]

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.

Yes, they are related with each other. If we are a starter, we need to track everything first to know what we should adjust and after it, this is now where we can set our limitations depending our capacity. Tracking may still be necessary here but if we are doing it for a long time, it is now possible for us to stop tracking and still stay within our limits. I will only like to add that there are people that are minimalist.

I mean they don't spend left and right on different things. So these people may also not need tracking but they can start immediately with setting a budget. I am like this but gambling is where most of my money go. So I need to set a proper budget for it.

[Out of mind]

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 tracking your expenses will not be very useful, but you should allocate a fixed amount for each month. When you set such an amount to spend, you will automatically get the expense account. However, tracking your expenses creates an awareness for our regular expenses so that we can refrain from buying unnecessary things. However, I think nothing like this will be of much use to us if we do not eliminate unnecessary purchases on our own. Rather, it would be good if we can set a personal budget, but tracking expenses is not very necessary.

[leonair]

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 your spending is just as important as having a fixed budget. Because no matter how much you have a fixed budget, if you don't understand where you are spending the most, you won't be able to correct those mistakes and reduce your spending. And until you can reduce your spending, no matter how much you have a fixed budget, you won't be able to stick to it most of the time. Yes, having a budget is definitely important, but tracking it is even more important.

[SquallLeonhart]

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.

It "may" help with behaviour as well. For example, if you download all the documents and all the expenses for 2025, and someone sees that they paid 15% of all their income to coffee/fast food, then they may try to cut that down a bit and make some savings out of that. If they have another useless expense like that, they can try to do that. I personally, I am to blame for fast food, I ate too much and now I am having medical issues because of it but I was in a very bad stressful and sad period of my life so I understand why I did it but I stopped thankfully.

Always budgeting and then tracking expenses will help to have better financial situations but life's demands are not same which means you may need to spend for unplanned things and break your own financial resolutions as well. So, budgeting and tracking might be having limited results on regulating our expense as nothing will change over the time but may change in a decade.

[Alone055]

I think tracking your expenses will not be very useful, but you should allocate a fixed amount for each month. When you set such an amount to spend, you will automatically get the expense account. However, tracking your expenses creates an awareness for our regular expenses so that we can refrain from buying unnecessary things. However, I think nothing like this will be of much use to us if we do not eliminate unnecessary purchases on our own. Rather, it would be good if we can set a personal budget, but tracking expenses is not very necessary.

How do you plan to get rid of unnecessary expenses without tracking your expenses? Because you will only know where the money is being spent if you keep noting everything down, one should keep a small diary, if they think they can't remember them this way, and they should write everything they spend money on, you don't even need a diary for it, just use your mobile phone and an app like Google Notes, in which you can create notes and add all the things you have used money on in that month, and then at the end of the month, you should have a look at the list and the money spent on things.

This process or this method allows you to easily evaluate all your expenses, and then you can decide which thing is unnecessary and you shouldn't spend money on them next time, and then you should remove those things from the list of things that you create a budget for in the next month, so that you don't spend money on unnecessary things and be able to manage your money in a better way and don't go over your budget or income.

[Akbarkoe]

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 prefer to keep track of my finances, with my daily financial records, I feel much better about my finances so far, I know where my money goes in a monthly period so that I can reduce unnecessary shopping activities and the money can be used for more positive things later, so that I can set my monthly budget very effectively, we know that there are a lot of unexpected and unclear costs that can make the budget limit and overspend therefore I think it is important, but if you are a very busy person and do not do this, it is also not a problem.

[bhadz]

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.

That probably didn't work for that guy, tracking expenses is important so that you'll have an idea on which spending you did is worth it and not. You have to look for the expenses that cost you that much and are not worth it to spend again next time you'll about to purchase it.

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?

Budgeting is different from tracking your expenses. Are you always going to spend all of your budget? of course no, there will be some savings when you track your expenses and you realize that you don't need them.

[Finestream]

Setting a budget does not mean that its okay to buy everything as long as it fits on your budget, that only shows that you don't value that much your hard-earned money. And if you adapt that kind of mindset, I don't think you can consistently stick to your budget, but there'll be more times that you will break your budget because instead of buying the necessities, you end up buying all your wants while leaving your basic needs forgotten.

Tracking your expenses leads to good budgeting. If you fail to track your expenses, I don't think the amount you set for your budget will be strictly followed.

[Josefjix]

Tracking your expenses leads to good budgeting. If you fail to track your expenses, I don't think the amount you set for your budget will be strictly followed.

I know a man who writes down his expenses every evening of the day, to keep track how he how he spend his money and what he spent it on, he's been doing this for over 50 years+ of his existence till now, his log book do filled while he get new one, I respect him so much.

I do keep track of my spending though, but I keep it at the back of my mind that whatever I spend on is truly what I need not want, if I can keep to this plan and always purchase on what actually will skyrock my life, even if all my money finish the same day, so long as I spend on what my purpose, career truly and really need.

[SUPERSAIAN]

You can't create a budget if you don't track your expenses. When you track your expenses, you can set your budget accordingly. Many people have this problem they don't track their expenses, which is why they strain their budgets every month, paying interest on credit cards and enriching the banks. I find it difficult to track my expenses,actually, it's not really difficult, I just don't act in a controlled manner, and I know it.