I figured I'd share a tool I've found helpful: apps for organizing receipts. There are tons of them out there, I'm pretty happy with Smart Receipts and the expense reports it generates but there are lots of both free and paid versions out there. The gist of it is you take a picture of the receipt with the smartphone, and then enter in the info for your records. More expensive ones can automatically pick up info from the image itself. All of them have the option to create an entry without a receipt or edit what info is there if you or the tech makes an error.
There are two ways I use this. The first is to simply know at a glance how much I've spent that month. I'm on SSI at their maximum of $733/month, so I know I need to spend less than that, but in the jumble of using a mixture of various credit cards (no carried balance), debit card, cash and even a check here and there I need a solid way to know when, for instance, it's halfway through the month and I need to try to make $100 stretch that far even if my account does technically have more (the rest is your cushion, silly). Or, it's 2 days until payday and I only spent $650, I rocked it!
The second way I use this is to make spreadsheets, which SmartReceipts can automatically export as, that can then track how much I spend in each category I set up. This helps me budget future expenses so I can feel confident about having enough money to go around on what's highest priority, or what has to wait or where corners can be cut. Having decent quality food and enough gas to get around freely is important to my physical and psychological wellbeing, but when a big ticket item takes precedence I'll spend the month hobbling by on less, totally miserable but at peace with my decision, as I can see my reward in the numbers.
For me, this app was a huge step up from roughly keeping track of things in my head. Hope someone else finds it useful!
There are two ways I use this. The first is to simply know at a glance how much I've spent that month. I'm on SSI at their maximum of $733/month, so I know I need to spend less than that, but in the jumble of using a mixture of various credit cards (no carried balance), debit card, cash and even a check here and there I need a solid way to know when, for instance, it's halfway through the month and I need to try to make $100 stretch that far even if my account does technically have more (the rest is your cushion, silly). Or, it's 2 days until payday and I only spent $650, I rocked it!
The second way I use this is to make spreadsheets, which SmartReceipts can automatically export as, that can then track how much I spend in each category I set up. This helps me budget future expenses so I can feel confident about having enough money to go around on what's highest priority, or what has to wait or where corners can be cut. Having decent quality food and enough gas to get around freely is important to my physical and psychological wellbeing, but when a big ticket item takes precedence I'll spend the month hobbling by on less, totally miserable but at peace with my decision, as I can see my reward in the numbers.
For me, this app was a huge step up from roughly keeping track of things in my head. Hope someone else finds it useful!
