Not everyone is quick to rush out an buy the latest software or gadget to handle their own personal finances. These people just might have the right idea. Spending a ton of money you don’t necessarily have in the first place just to manage your own money may not be the best way to remain frugal or financially smart. So for those who are not tech-savvy or who can not afford to get the technology claiming to make financial management as easy as 1-2-3, here are some was to keep track of your cash while saving some of it at the same time.

Put It In Writing
One of the most common and useful pieces of advice concerning personal finance is tracking your spending. Typically, it is advised that you keep a pocket-sized notebook on hand at all times to make tracking more efficient. Since you are already using a notebook and a pencil to deal with your finances, take it a bit further when you are ready to create a new budget and purchase an inexpensive notebook or ledger that you can use to write down all of your bills, due dares, expenses, and other financial obligations each month. You can also keep a page to re-write all of you expense spending and get a clearer picture of how much you are spending each month and where you can make some cuts. A more traditional pen-to-paper method can help you keep it simple and inexpensive, but most importantly it will allow you to keep tabs on your cash.

Retain Your Receipts
If you can get in the habit of consistently asking for receipts, even if you pay cash, you will have a better history of what you are spending until you can sit and write it down. Receipts will help you keep track of the date you made the purchase, what the purchase entailed, and the total cost of the purchase. It can also help you to mark on each receipt what category the expense falls under so when it comes time to go over your budget, you’ll know how much spending you are doing for all different categories such as entertainment, bills, food, and the like. The key to making this an effective method of saving money is to keep all of your receipts in a designated location, regularly writing down the information contained on the receipts, and of course, remembering to ask for a receipt each time you spend money. Otherwise, this method can quickly become overwhelming and ineffective.

Utilize Statements
This may not be an effective method for all types of expense tracking but if you are prone to using your credit card for all your spending, you can take the monthly statements and notate them with individual categories. You can total each statements and have a good idea of what you are spending on each category. This will make it easier to make the difficult decisions of what to cut out spending-wise to save your budget. This will help you to also create a new budget if you haven’t yet started one.

Tags: budgets, finances, financial management, money management

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 25th, 2009 at 5:14 am and is filed under tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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