When you find yourself spending too much money frivolously, it can be difficult to cut down all at once. Personal finance blog The Simple Dollar recommends making incremental decreases so it’s easier to adjust to the change. More »
SpendingDiary is a simple, functional web-based expense tracker that tags expenditures, generates reports, and gives good data on your money flow. The site has a completely functional demonstration account available—a nice touch that makes it really easy to test drive without handing over an email address. SpendingDiary has a simple interface—for every entry you assign a name, a category, and the amount you spent. You can generate reports for the day, week, month, or a custom date range, and your expenses displayed in a slick pie graph, broken into the tags you’ve set up. Your data is also exportable to other formats, including the ever-friendly CSV.
SpendingDiary [via MakeUseOf]Ramit at I Will Teach You To Be Rich shares a system his friend uses to set a firm amount of discretionary spending each month and then not spend more. It’s a take on the “cash in envelopes” system (represented digitally in programs like Budget, and it’s just as grok-able—when the money’s gone for the month, it’s gone. Obviously, you’d want to ensure you don’t draw serious overdraft fees, and you’d have to have a handle on your monthly budget to begin with, but it’s at least as effective as deducting credit charges as you go, and possibly moreso, with the thought of having a card turned down a nice social conditioner. For those with a fuzzy grip on spending, this technique could make the numbers seem pretty firm. How to use a separate debit card for discretionary spending [I Will Teach You To Be Rich]
Wired writer Clive Thompson has a thought-provoking piece in this month’s issue on the general decline in fixing and tinkering and how it affects our ingenuity, our thinking, and even our spending habits: You see this on a personal level. If you can’t get under the hood of the gadgets you buy, you’re far more liable to believe the marketing hype of the corporations that sell them. When things break, you toss them and buy new ones; you accept your role as a mere consumer. “I think it makes you more passive as an individual,” says Matthew Crawford, a former motorcycle repair-shop owner (and postdoctoral fellow in cultural studies) who’s writing a book on the demise of mechanical aptitude in America.
Hit the link for a few upbeat signs about the growing resurgence in around-the-house aptitude, fostered by magazines like MAKE and *ahem* DIY-friendly websites. What are you comfortable trying yourself, what would you rather just buy/re-buy, and what do you wish you knew how to do? Share your thoughts in the comments. Clive Thompson on How DIYers Just Might Revive American Innovation [Wired]
So you’ve just finished paying off (or mostly paying down) your holiday expenses, and now Valentine’s Day looks like it’s going to break your frugal stride. Not necessarily so, says Trent at The Simple Dollar personal finance blog. Rather than taking the easy-but-expensive route, he recommends both a few nuggets of common wisdom (thoughtful cards, secluded spots) and an idea that’s new to me: Take time off. If you both have some vacation time built up, put in for a day off and spend it together. Do some simple and purely fun things that you wouldn’t ordinarily get to do. Cuddle together for a big chunk of the day and just enjoy each other instead of stressing out at work.
If you’re the type who frequently has to use up vacation time at year-end, spending one day with a significant other is both realistic and a great way to show commitment. What do you have planned for the holiday that’s more thoughtful than bank-breaking? Spread the love in the comments. Nine Tactics for a Frugal Valentine’s Day [The Simple Dollar]
Get your expenses in order before the holidays with free ebook Within Your Means: Financial Planning for Hidden Expenses. Writer Michael Ham rolled an ebook and an Excel workbook together into one hybrid financial management tool. In addition to learning about implicit and explicit costs, you interact directly with the workbook by entering your income, expenses, and goals. A series of interrelated Excel formulas slowly molds a snapshot of your current financial situation. An Excel workbook to help you create a budget that recognises not only your explicit expenses (rent/mortgage, utilities, groceries, auto insurance and registration, and the like), but also implicit expenses: the money you implicitly spend by gradually wearing out things you must replace (car, tires, mattress, TV, furniture, and the like).
I spent an hour going through the workbook earlier this week and was pleased at how well the workbook complemented traditional financial software like Quicken, Money, Wesabe, and Mint.
Within Your Means: Financial Planning for Hidden Expenses [Leisureguy's Storefront]
