Why I'm Able To Track EVERY Expense For The Past 6 Years (How to track expenses)
Why I'm Able To Track EVERY Expense For The Past 6 Years (How to track expenses)
Hey all! I break down exactly how I’ve tracked and manage my expenses for the past 6 years. I haven’t missed a single one – and knowing this has helped me a ton! Enjoy! Follow me on Instagram: humphreytalks
Link to my Monthly Expense Sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/167wPTCwyUQ7ht68SoDTLQMeRCxT5DmsI6euIvy0-1fs/edit#gid=793627675
Link to Spending Tracker: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/spending-tracker/id548615579
📌 Subscribe for Weekly Videos: https://bit.ly/humphcrew
📸 Instagram: https://instagram.com/humphreytalks
🦜 Twitter: https://twitter.com/humphreytalks
💥 Tik Tok: https://tiktok.com/@humphreytalks
🔔 Tick the notification bell for when I post a video!
Get The Hump 🐪 Days Newsletter (Free) ➭ https://humpdays.substack.com
Join my Personal Finance Discord Community Free ➭ https://discord.gg/f9cvvxc
Patreon ➭ https://patreon.com/humphreytalks
Get a Free Stock With Robinhood ➭ https://robinhood.c3me6x.net/qPyKY
I’ll explain two things: Why I track every expense, and how I’ve managed to track every expense for the past 6 years. So lets tackle the why first.
Why:
– I want a deep intimate knowledge of where my money is going, because if I know where my money is going we can accomplish a few things:
– Being conscious of spending
– Not making senseless purchases that I’ll regret later, every purchase has more consideration
When you’re inputting everything in, it is bringing more awareness to your spending and thus your money is more purposeful
Identifying Trends
– By building a long running history of my tracked expenses, I can tell when my spending might start getting out of hand, this especially guards against lifestyle inflation – for those of you who do know what that is, it’s basically when you start making more money, you feel like you can spend more money – and often times people start to spend more as a result of it.
Maximizing Budget
– By not making senseless purchases, I’m able to budget more money into doing the things I actually want to do: treating myself to dinner out, going to a concert, travel, etc.
– I’m also able to understand what I spend on a monthly basis and am then able to make adjustments into how much I spend on different categories to hit my spending and savings goals.
How:
1. Remove Your Ego
– It’s the #1 reason why people stop tracking, it’s embarrassing to face our purchasing decisions.
2. Enter Expenses Immediately
– Easy to do, won’t forget it.
3. Separate your Monthly and Discretionary Expenses
– Good to know how much your monthly recurring expenses total number is
4. Reward Yourself
– Or else how are you gonna keep going?
5. Summarize and Analyze
– Identify the trends, fix the leaks, and manage your money better!
My last caveat is that, one time purchases, especially large ones, I like to enter in on my spreadsheet as a separate line. It feels bad to enter it in to my monthly running total of discretionary expenses, and to avoid that – if I do have a one-time big purchase, it will be reflected in my spreadsheet later on.
👊 If you like the work and appreciate the value it may bring, please show it some love and drop me a Like and a Comment (I reply to every single one!). If you’re feeling extra 💥⚡️🔥 you can share this video with your friends and on social media!
🙋🏻♂️ Who am I? My name is Humphrey Yang, I am an entrepreneur who has built businesses and am passionate about Personal Finance. This channel is dedicated to helping people (whether you’re 21 or 81) become better with their Money, Personal Finances, and Entrepreneurship, I hope these videos help.
📧 Contact me: If you have a question feel free to leave me a comment on my videos or follow me on IG and send me a DM! If you have a business related inquiry, please then send me an email at humphreytalks@gmail.com
Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor, any investment commentary are my opinions only. Some of the products and services that appear on this channel are from companies that I have an affiliate relationship with, such as Robinhood, for which I recieve a small percentage made via those links, but it doesn’t cost you anything extra!
Thanks for the tip Humphrey – I just downloaded spending tracker app.
You’re doing a great, great job. Also, I feel like you’re also somehow improved on the delivery of the message. Quite unsure how it happened and what’s the difference, but things have improved. Just a feedback for you. Now, coming to gratitude – Thanks for investing your time, you’re doing everyone a great favour. Success awaits you!
I track my Networth and my income/expenses with Personal Capital App.
Great video. I use an Excel spreadsheet from Vertex42. They have awesome expense spreadsheets that are free and downloadable. Tracking every penny I spend has opened my eyes to all the bullcrap I waste money on that could be better utilized in my Roth IRA.
I don’t think Graham would be happy with that $5.00 coffee purchase
I think this is a good question, why do I have to pay taxes on stocks/dividends when I used my already taxed income to buy the shares? Shouldn’t it be treated somewhat like an IRA?
Thanks 😊
Nice intro, keep up the good work
I have been doing this for just over 2 years now and yes people have called me crazy. The only times I miss tracking are those annual card charges or some other SMS charges.
It was the Mandy Moore CD for me. You’re the best.
Fab video this is so helpful!!
I’ve been tracking my expenses since my first paycheck! That would be since 2017.
For Android I’ve been using the app called My Finances, it has ads but I think is really good. I want to switch to another app but here are the pros:
– You can add Categories. For example you have a general category for Food, inside it has 2 subcategories which are Restaurant and Supermarket. In that way you can see how much you have spent in general and in more detail. I even have a category for my girlfriend, it helps me keep track of the money invested on the gifts I give her etc. I also have a category for car expenses and for personal expenses.
– You can export all the data to .csv so it is really easy if you want to have a history log.
– It has very good metrics and graphic information (pie chart, bar chart, etc) by week, month or year.
– You can add Tags to every expense. I use them to place the establishment in which the expense was made. Therefore I can easily track for example how much I have spent in Dunkin Donuts.
– You can ad multiple accounts. This is really useful if you have more than 1 income or if you have a saving account.
Another thing I’ve learned is that cash is almost untraceable but I’ve found my ways around that. I also like to carry cash on me almost all the time, you never know when you’re gonna need it. So what I do is that at the start of every month I take out the equivalent in cash of the gasoline I usually use for my car. In that way I always have cash and I don’t have the urge to spend it because I know is cash meant for gasoline. If there’s an establishment where they don’t accept credit/debit cards I use my available cash, then I round it up so I can take it out of a ATM and finally I can register that expense on my app.
There’s just one thing that is difficult for me, assign budgets. I mean, I never consume more than what I earn and I have a fixed amount (goal) set for my savings account but I don’t have a specific number for for example eating in restaurants or personal expenses, entretainment, etc.
Great video Humphrey! I really like your content.
Need to start tracking my expenses too 🥺😅
I guess we all need rewards when we accomplish a goal. Thank you for the tips. Do you know a good app to track expenses on android?
I’ve tracked all of my expenses since 2012. A year per Google spreadsheet. Thanks for the video. I’m glad I’m not the only one.
Thank you greatly for this video because I have been looking for an app like this for a while now!
Thank you for including the parts on mindset and avoiding tracking due to guilt. I’m a mental health professional the belief that some of the most helpful things as far as productivity often start with a healthy mindset so thank you for including that and keep up the good work!
Tracking my expenses from 2014. Build my own huge database at excel. Glad I’m not the only one who doing it.
I’m so happy this was recommended to me 🙂 love watching you!
Use me as the dislike button
I’m going to barrow your expense tracking spread sheet. Dude, I’m desperate for some kind of process that will keep me accountable. Thanks so much for the content.
I have been tracking my monthly expenses with your provided sheet and it made me realize how much I spent on online shopping in July🙄 I combine my monthly expenses and discretionary expenses in one sheet, because I can easily access the sheet in drive 😀 Thank you for providing the sheet!
I’ve watched two of Humphreys videos and what is with Mandy Moore? I also started tracking my expense this year and it’s eye opening.
Anyone track where every single penny goes but still consciously makes bad choices?! I really can’t help it when it comes to eating out 😩😩. That’s really my only bad addiction! I just cannot help it. I make bad choices with food and when I’m logging it, I’m just like “dang, I really have no control 😭”
Good information! That’s a good way to keep track of your expenses.
Really liking the format of your delivery now! Clearly you’ve improved. I personally use the monthly expense tracker template from google docs and customized some formulas and rows to suit my needs. The planned and actual costs is really helpful and the bar graph as well help visualize how much I’ve spent. The best part is that I could just copy the sheet for the next month and re-strategize when I need to when I think I spent too much from the previous month. The only downside is that it is tedious to view it on a yearly basis but I’m working on another sheet as a personal project that hopefully would help me with that.
Thanks a lot for the time and sharing this, very helpful 🙂
Thank you so much. Being able to create your own categories is best part of this app
I just got my first job and while I had a strong financial education growing up I have never had any significant amount of money to track. I have watched a bunch of videos on budgeting and expense tracking and am probably having too much fun with it lol. I love taking my favorite parts of each system and adapting them into my own. So far I have tracked everything for the last 2 weeks and it is super easy, either doing it in the moment or 5min at the end of the day.
E
I think I’d prefer something automatic
Was used to getting huge raises and bonuses that i knew were temporary in the military but it’s hard going back to reality of having average pay
Thank you Humphrey for sharing your spreadsheet! I appreciate all your helpful and concise content!
Thanks for checking out this video guys. I worked hard on this one I appreciate ALL your feedback and comments so far! I am hoping that this video HELPS you save money long term, allows you to be more AWARE of your finances, and inspires you to track! If you have any questions, leave them for me in the comments and I’ll get back to them ASAP. Your support never ceases to amaze me, thank you thank you- I appreciate you all!
Where did you buy the light up clouds in the background?
Can’t seem to find your link for your Google spreadsheet. Help!
Great video!
Love the vids. Thoughts on YNAB for expense tracking?
Thanks for this.
This was an incredibly helpful video, thanks so much for making it. I searched the whole internet for something like this and the closest thing I ever found was YNAB which I hate. Thank u fr
cute and cool!
thank you this is very helpful
Really like the video. Definitely got some good tips. I know you mentioned the pitfalls of the automated trackers with cash purchases and such, but is there any tracker that does automated tracking for credit cards and such, but also allows you to enter manual expenses? Any insight would be much appreciated.
This video is intended for people with low to mid income. Not really a good video for high earners wanting to take advantage of all the technology and apps out there.
Using your Google tracker. Modified it slightly but works perfectly. A+
i just started to try to track every single expense today, reason: i dont know where all my money gone to! even tho i dont buy expensive stuff but just seems like my money is disappearing! so ur video is sooo helpful…after watching ur video, i realised i was hit by the "lifestyle inflation" with food & random shopping… since almost everywhere is going cashless now, it’s much easier to track using my different credit card / bank / paypal statements. and the amount just shocked me, i thought my monthly expense was just X amount, but in the end it turned out to be 2X amount!!!
Today’s the day I finally decided to check my ego and get finances in check! I loved that this video made managing finances seem more approachable 🙂
Awesome! Lifestyle inflation point is important. I love the intro!