Created a new budget to hit a savings goal for 2022. Any tips to help stick to the budget? I generally buy everything on Amex and then pay a direct debit each month. The points are great but I can’t track expenses well. Any help is much appreciated.

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I use Mint - input my monthly budget (really just do this once a year based on my plan, you can indicate expenses that are less frequent than monthly as well) and then once a week or so go in for 10 minutes to make sure things categorized correctly and see how I’m doing against my plan. You can link all of your accounts and help track your spending, net worth etc.

likesmarthelpful

YNAB?

likesmart

Big fan of YNAB. It takes a little bit to get used to and it’s more work than Mint. But for me it’s been the best budgeting app I’ve used by far. Only downside is there’s a monthly subscription fee.

The key to keeping to a budget is tracking every penny in and out. There are many tools like YNAB or Mint (Inuit). Personally I use mint. Now once you pick a budget, set aside an hour every week to monitor, adjust, review your weekly spending to see if you are keeping to your monthly budget. After a few months you will see trends of spending that may be unnecessary. These are the spends you can focus on cutting.

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I created my own excel sheet but there are a ton of great ones on Etsy that are affordable! I also use personal capital to view all my bank & investment transactions in one place.

Use cash for everything that isn’t your rent/mortgage/insurance/utilities

Cash makes it hard to trace transactions for legal purposes. I highly recommend you use credit as much as possible to pay bills AND THEN pay the credit card debt completely off every month. This allows for fraud insurance and transaction tracking. Plus you can then see what you are spending on. This recommendation is if you use debt cards also. Do not use cash or debt cards if you can pay off credit cards every month.

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I have a chase freedom card and it categorizes all my spending for me. I put almost everything on the card except my mortgage, and pay the full balance monthly.

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