track everything I spend for a week

This week I set up a formula so I could calculate my average daily spending and see if I am living within my means. My “means” for me is my take-home pay minus 10% savings and rent (I have this money automatically withdrawn from my main account each payday). Looking at my spending with a daily allowance really puts things in perspective and makes me a little stressed. All it takes is one phone bill payment to completely blow my meager allowance. Whah! I know it will all balance out though. Ideally I’d like to work towards being within 90% of that daily allowance.

Now I am trying to figure out what to do about big one-time expenses that I pay for out of my savings. Since my daily allowance already includes a savings deduction, those big purchases aren’t part of my daily spending. However, I’d like to acknowledge it somehow since it is a significant purchase. Any thoughts? EDIT: well I changed it so I am counting my savings allotment in my total allowance since it is technically spending money, even if my goal is not to spend it. That really throws off my percentages since the major purchase (a ticket to Landmark) is a whopping 40%+ of my spending for the last two weeks and it means I am spending 140% of my income. Even more depressing. I guess we’ll see how it evens out over the course of my tracking.

I spend all my money on booze and bath products.

I can’t figure out how to sort a Google spreadsheet by numbers. It is really frustrating! Am I going to have to rearrange my category totals every week? Arg.

I am one of those “check book balancing people.” I guess that makes me uncool and an uncreative ungenius. But I always write down all my check, atm and debit card transactions and I reconcile my statement every month. And yes I still write checks. Bite me!

However, I also tend to use mostly cash when going out for drinks, buying lunch and paying for transportation (bus and cabs) so I only have a fuzzy idea of how much I am spending on what in those categories. So far this week of money-tracking has been illuminating in that regard, although I’m also trying to use my debit card more just because then I get a reciept and it’s easier to remember. My OCD-ness doesn’t need much more encouraging, but I think I want to keep this up for longer than a week so I can see some real patterns emerge.

Here’s my spreadsheet!