Anyone want to write a money diary?

Brendan Burgess

Brendan Burgess

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Apparently a website where people document their week's spending has gone viral in New York.

https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/money-diary

I don't see the attraction of it myself.

Would it have any application to askaboutmoney? My guess is that it would be entertaining but not of any real use and the primary purpose of askaboutmoney is to ask and answer practical questions.

Brendan
 
@Brendan Burgess Irish people by their nature are very secretive about their personal finances. Some are living lifestyles they cannot afford, and we are getting back to boom time spending in a lot of cases. I would say anything that opens up that discussion and gets people talking about finance is probably a good thing.

Brendan Burgess said:
My guess is that it would be entertaining but not of any real use and the primary purpose of askaboutmoney is to ask and answer practical questions.
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I think a week is too short - a month would make more sense I think. It also may be useful if it was also the month people renewed their insurances or swapped service providers for utilities (including broadband/TV etc).
 
Something that might be useful would be some form of typical household budgets for different income / lifestyle scenarios. Some of the posts in the money makeover forums tend to result in critique of how much a poster is spending on something that others don't find normal.

From my own experience, a few years ago (before I discovered AAM) we sat down to try work out if we could afford for my wife to give up work. We were coming from a situation without children where we both had decent salaries, to 1 child and giving up a 60k salary. We hadn't got a detailed analysis of our spending, as we never needed to worry about it previously. It was a nightmare trying to work it out, and it was really only 6 months after we'd gone ahead that we were comfortable with our planning.

Any help I could find was around budgets for people struggling, which were helpful in picking up things we'd forgotten, but they don't usually allow for foreign holidays for example.

Since mortgage / rent is such a variable, maybe some analysis of a net budget after mortgage.
E.g family with 2 / 3 / 4k per month. What's it being spent on?
 
For my sins, I have kept a record in excel of my spending going back over many many years :(. Compete with graphs, comparitive analysis etc.
Yes, I know, I need to get out more. But I'm a statto type so it was interesting to me to carry this out. And I started it at a time when I was saving to buy a house and wanted to see where my money was going, have a cash flow projection etc
 
RedOnion said:
From my own experience, a few years ago (before I discovered AAM) we sat down to try work out if we could afford for my wife to give up work. We were coming from a situation without children where we both had decent salaries, to 1 child and giving up a 60k salary. We hadn't got a detailed analysis of our spending, as we never needed to worry about it previously. It was a nightmare trying to work it out, and it was really only 6 months after we'd gone ahead that we were comfortable with our planning.
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Our situation was not too dissimilar. We wanted to determine the financial impacts of my wife going from a 4 day week to 2.5 day week, both in terms of income/expenditure and pension contributions. While we had joint accounts for all household spending, we needed to 'average' out person spending as well (in the interest of fairness). We reviewed expenditure for the previous quarter and came up with a 6 month budget across a number of categories. We done this from January 2016, and have done it continuously since - revised either 6 monthly or annually. It does allow us track expenses and make sure we are not being 'silly' in certain categories. My wife tracks the budget spending each month, tracking actual spend v budgeted.

This has two main benefits of this approach are:
(a) Clear categorization of spending (childcare, groceries, entertainment, [kids] activities, mortgage, holidays etc] allowing us to easily track where our money is spent
(b) Ensure that we are 'living within our means', as the budget is agreed, along with the associated funding
 
I have done something similar which was prompted by the arrival of baby number 1. It was more to see how much of an impact extended unpaid maternity leave, childcare costs, etc. would have on our disposable income each month. This helped us to identify some areas where we were needlessly over spending and anticipate others where costs were going to rise.


I think sharing all these numbers would help some people but would ultimately end up with negative comments about lifestyle costs that others may not have.


I think that if there was a thread/forum for people to share money savings tips this could be beneficial to all.
 
I look at that website refinery29 from time to time. I think it’s great to get you thinking about spending and your own priorities. I’d love an Irish one. I think a week is perfect. It’s a lot for contributors to commit to more.
 
Seems like a great idea.

In a previous life I used to look at peoples spending habits regularly. It often struck me how different areas were prioritised by different families, even within a similar total.

For example some families spend far more on food than other similar sized families.

Obviously some spend far more on entertainment inc. alcohol and smoking, than others do.

One that always jumped out at me was clothing, some people would have huge figures, others very low. I always allowed myself a quick look to see if this was reflected in their appearance. Usually not, the big spenders rarely looked any better dressed (to my eye) than the €50 once in a year in Pennys brigade.

A tool like this would allow us all to identify areas where our spending was out of step with the norm. That might be because we have different priorities, but it might be just because we have developed expensive habits that could do with a rethink.
 
cremeegg said:
Seems like a great idea.

In a previous life I used to look at peoples spending habits regularly. It often struck me how different areas were prioritised by different families, even within a similar total.

For example some families spend far more on food than other similar sized families.

Obviously some spend far more on entertainment inc. alcohol and smoking, than others do.

One that always jumped out at me was clothing, some people would have huge figures, others very low. I always allowed myself a quick look to see if this was reflected in their appearance. Usually not, the big spenders rarely looked any better dressed (to my eye) than the €50 once in a year in Pennys brigade.

A tool like this would allow us all to identify areas where our spending was out of step with the norm. That might be because we have different priorities, but it might be just because we have developed expensive habits that could do with a rethink.
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clothes maketh the man, or woman. But if you dont have any taste in the first place it wont matter a jot.
 
It never ceases to amaze me how many people have no idea how and where they are spending their money and only do these type exercises when they are in financial difficulty or applying for a mortgage.
There must be a million and one apps out there for your phone or computer or you can use MS Excel and create your own, Its not that hard to-do you just have to remember to keep adding your spending to it.
I've been doing it now for over 20 years (on Excel since 2005) and its helped me no end in my past, present and future financial/spending decisions.

But I would agree with other posters here that while it would be interesting to see how other people spend their money they would also be opening themselves to criticism on how and where they spend there money
 
A great way to monitor people's spending habits is to be a family law solicitor - what I do.

Part of the separation/ divorce process is to prepare what is called an Affidavit of Means - a sworn statement of assets, liabilities, income and outgoings. Many of my clients struggle with this - they simply have no idea where the money goes. I see one years Bank/ Credit card statements as vouching and it can be a real eye-opener.

I am often shocked by what people spend their money on- e.g. private schools, way too much coffee, eating out, Jimmy Choo shoes, cars- where the income is not there to support the spending.

More often than not, people have not had to address their spending habits until the income stream has to cover two sets of household expenses.

While it seems obvious to me............

Per Mr. Micawber
"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen [pounds] nineteen [shillings] and six [pence], result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery."

mf
 
I too dealt with this sort of spending tracking in my previous jobs and it is fascinating to see the differences between people.

Personally I started a spending diary way before any apps etc :) I have them going back 33 yrs, all in the top of the wardrobe and I still keep one very year in a standard paper diary, now it's just habit at this stage but it was very useful for many years.

I worked with a young girl few years back and she was new in our office but she was telling me she couldn't get on top of her overdraft so I advised as I always did the spending diary. She discovered very quickly she was spending over 30 quid a week on chocolate bars! Well that had to stop along with the several weekly visits to cinema until the overdraft was under control. It's a very useful exercise to see where the wastage is.
 
Delboy said:
For my sins, I have kept a record in excel of my spending going back over many many years :(. Compete with graphs, comparitive analysis etc.
Yes, I know, I need to get out more. But I'm a statto type so it was interesting to me to carry this out. And I started it at a time when I was saving to buy a house and wanted to see where my money was going, have a cash flow projection etc
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There are others like me out there :)

Being doing something similar for some 18 years and a sibling finds it highly amusing.
But it has saved me money not least spotting banking related mistakes.
 
Secretly, I kept a money diary for years in a cheap public service note book. Every week was a struggle. I couldn't come to terms with our shortages every hour of every day of every week. No holidays, no theatre, nothing. Literally we hadn't a cent to spare. Mrs Lep had to give up her working career on marriage. We had four kids and when they evolved from nappies it was like a lotto win for us. But, the money saved on not buying nappies was needed elsewhere. In the middle of all this we consigned the car to the shed and started the engine only once a month just to keep it working. We couldn't afford road tax, car insurance, petrol. There was always something to drain the coffers.

I cycled everywhere, even brought the kids to primary school on the bike daily. Secondary school brought on a plethora of more charges. The battle was a losing one continuously. Mrs Lep took in English learning students from anywhere just to keep the coffers ticking over. Being a public servant my income was easily known and so we did not qualify for any 3rd Level Grant. I took a part-time job in a pub to keep ours away in university while the publican I worked for qualified for 3rd level grants for his offspring in the same university. When I think back, it's a wonder that I can think at all. I remember winning £2K family sun holiday. I literally begged for money in lieu of the holiday. Anything just to keep our heads above water. The worry was continuous, the strain unbearable, every light at the end of a tunnel seemed to be the light of a train about to maim us. I'm getting somewhat emotional as I post and fond memories? - Absolutely not, I look back in anger and if there's one kind of person I dislike, it's the silverspooners who abuse their good fortune. If anybody looking in is feeling the pinch keep a money diary. When times get better, take the diary out occasionally a look at what you went through. It will keep you well grounded, free of charge.
 
I was only telling my daughter the other day who has just toilet trained her 3 yr old of the huge financial relief it was when she was toilet trained, her nappies cost more than half her childcare cost at that time. Back then there was no Lidl/Aldi own brand and I even see Tesco do them too plus they are so much better than you can actually leave them on longer.

Yes of course I could have used cloth ones but hell I was working full time too so couldn't be dealing with that as well!

I actually started my own spending diary just after she was born when I didn't have the 40 quid for the follow up doc's appointment, now I wasn't earning a fortune either but it concentrates the mind.
 
Romulan said:
There are others like me out there :)

Being doing something similar for some 18 years and a sibling finds it highly amusing.
But it has saved me money not least spotting banking related mistakes.
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I don't tell anyone...the embarrassment of it!
But the wife knows and she uses it as a stick to beat me with from time to time as she is the direct opposite to me....not a clue where her money goes from month to month
 
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