How to track expenses?

An ideal system for tracking expenses should be simple enough and good enough. It is hard to maintain both simplicity and quality. Therefore, you should think about things you actually want to catch using your tracking system. There are several issues you might want to track.

• date and time of spending
• amount
• specific product that you buy
  
• type of expenses
• point of sale
• manufacturer
• environmental issues (recyclable or not)
• ...

It would be nice to have all those features in our tracking system, but it would take several hours per week to type in all those data. One solution is to hire somebody to do it for you, but it is wasting of money if you don't need all those features. So what you could do now?

1. What types you are going to track? It would be nice to track gifts to family, gifts to friend, even maybe gift to a person, but it would take time. My suggestion is "No more than 10 types of expenses". Reserve one type called "Other expenses". Take a look at the following example:
   
   • transport
   • house maintenance
     
   • leisure
   • mortgages and other financial expenses
     
   • food
   • junk food
   • kids
   • clothes
   • investments
     
   • other expenses
     
   
   
2. Create a spreadsheet. Label three columns as: type of expenses, date of expense, amount spent. You could add one column for specific notes if you like.
3. Type in data daily or weekly.
   

Some recommendations

• Usually is doesn't matter if you miss accurate date. It is important to put in appropriate month. Therefore, you could even create combo boxes for choosing types, and months. Any actual data you have to type in is the amount of an expense.
• Even actual amount is not that important (there is not big difference between $27.89 and $28). Such data would be perfect but it could help to get a rough picture about your spending.
  
• Resist the need to modify types for first month or year. After that you can modify the list of types, but keep it simple as much as possible. The key point it to keep is simple because the more difficult tracking is, it is more is probable to abandon the tracking.
• You can group several expenses. For example: You buy apples for $5, carrots for $4, milk for $4.5 and pretzels for $1.5. You can type in:
  
  1. food, May, $13.5.
  2. junk food, May, $1.5
     

Using this method, you should spend no more than 30 minutes per week, or 3-4 minutes per day. And that is perfect for filling the time gaps in daily schedules.

How to track usage of your time on your computer?

You can track usage of your time using a lot of different ways.

• Use a pen and a paper;
  
• Use some spreadsheet program with columns for task, start time, end time;
• Use some programs to do the same. For example you could find here a lot of alternatives;
• Use some free programs to do the automatic tracking. For example you could use TimeTrack;

Probably the best way is to start with TimeTrack (there is a free edition) and see if you need something more. TimeTrack is very automated. Actually, you don't have to do anything but analyze your work. TimeTrack will start automatically whenever you start your computer, waits in the tray and it is doesn't consume to much memory.

How should I declutter my stuff?

You can use organized and chaotic approaches to declutter your stuff.

• Organized approach
  
  First of all, you should make a list of everything you own. This might be a little bit tedious, but it is necessary. If you have a lot of stuff you probably cannot finish with list in one day. In that case, make a list of places that you could finish with in a reasonable amount of time (for example, the closet on the left in the living room, the closet on the right in the living room, ...)
  
  After that, note the date of last use for each stuff in the list, and process the stuff one by one.

• Chaotic approach
  
  Start anywhere you like (bathroom, living room) and pick a random stuff at hand, and ask yourself what is the date of last use of that stuff. Process the stuff and pick another one.
  

Processing the stuff

If you haven't use the stuff for a year or more then this is a candidate for decluttering. One year period is not fixed. For some stuff period should be shorter (for example the milk in your fridge) or longer (winter clothes). But the key is to ask your self: "Do I really need this stuff?". If you really, really need the stuff don't do anything. If you don't need the stuff than you have three options:

1. Throw it away
2. Give it away
   
3. Sell it

If something is for throwing than pile up the stuff at the entrance. If you would like to give away something, you should immediately consider to whom you will give it. Otherwise it could float around as if it is something you need. If you want something to sell, then you have a range of options, from ads on the net to ads on the windshield of your car.

Before getting rid of something, you should be aware if there is legal or personal limitation. For example, you cannot just throw away something dangerous. Also, some stuff you must hold such as tax related papers, health related papers, etc. On the other hand there might be some emotional value (souvenirs, photos, ...) that you wouldn't throw away just like that. Also, be aware that if you have family things could complicate. If you find something of no use, your spouse might object and be very angry. In that case, before getting rid of things, ask everyone in family to check if there is something that they would like to keep. Don't argue about that. Probably there won't be a lot of such things.

Why should I declutter my stuff?

Why should you do that? There are several reasons.

1. Stuff eats space, and space eats money. How clutter eats space? Everything has some volume. Therefore you should have enough space in your home to store stuff. You can even calculate how much money costs one cubic feet. If for an example, you have one thousand square feet apartment that costs $400,000, and the height of ceiling is 8 feet. Then you have in your apartment 8000 cubic feet and one cubic foot costs 50$. One cubic foot is a box which base is one square foot and which height is one foot. If you have 20 such boxes full of unneeded stuff, then you have lost one thousand dollars.

2. Stuff eats time, and time is money. How clutter eats time? First of all, everything needs some kind of maintenance, and maintenance eats time if you do it, or it eats money if you pay someone to do it. If you have two TV sets, than you will have to clean both of them. The second way that stuff eats time, is in increased effort to find something. For example if you have a pile of 10 magazines, with five useful, and five useless. Then each time you search for a specific magazine, you spend one half of search time unnecessary. There are examples even drastic examples.

3. Stuff eats mental energy. For example: you play with your kids, but something is nagging about what to do with that closet or garage that is full of stuff.