A Simple Routine for Tracking Household Spending
A simple monthly routine for tracking spending: set your own categories, log transactions in minutes, keep an eye on bills, and review once a month.
This guide describes one way to run a tracking routine in a spreadsheet. It is about recording numbers, not about what anyone should do with their money. Those decisions are yours.
Use categories that match your life
Many people use 10–15 categories. Typical ones are housing, utilities, groceries, eating out, transport, insurance, subscriptions, kids, health, gifts and fun. You can split a category later if it turns out to be hiding something.
Optional: a monthly plan per category
You can type the amount you expect each category to cost per month, or leave it blank. One way to choose the numbers is to look at the last month or two of statements. The plan column is an entry you can change at any time, not a promise or a target.
Logging transactions
Each transaction needs a date, an amount, a category and an optional note. Logging a little at a time keeps each batch small. Copying amounts from your bank's export works too. The totals only include transactions that have a category.
Watch bills separately
Recurring bills have due dates, so give them their own list: what, how much, which day of the month and how it's paid. A "due in the next 14 days" view lists what is coming up.
A monthly review
One way to review is to look at three things at the end of each month:
- Which categories came in over or under the plan you entered?
- Did anything one-off happen?
- Do you want to change any plan number for next month?
The Monthly Summary tab shows the totals for each category.
Tracking goals
If you are setting money aside for something, like a holiday or a new appliance, you can record the target and how much you have put aside so far. The progress bar shows the amount saved so far against the target.
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