You’ve been tracking your spending for about a month now. Great job! Building this habit is key, and while it might feel like a lot of work right now, it gets way, way easier over time. You might be soaring high on your accomplishments. But in our experience, we know that life often gets in the way too. When that happens, it’s easy to forget to add transactions –or to let a bunch of imported ones pile up before you get around to confirming and categorizing them. We’re here to help you get back on track.
Today’s Assignment
- If you know you’ve forgotten to add or confirm some transactions, don’t beat yourself up! This is all a learning experiment. And the cool part is you always have the opportunity to go back and clean up what you missed earlier. So do that now!
- Add or confirm any transactions you’ve missed. Protip: If you have a handful of transactions to add, do this on the website so you can use the ‘Save & New’ button on the Add Transaction screen to more easily add multiple transactions in a row. How cool is that?
- As you update your spending from the week, think about things you might try to help you keep transactions up-to-date on a more regular basis, and share your tips with the group in the comments below.
Note for couples: If one of you tends to keep closer track of details, that person can be responsible for keeping the transaction information up-to-date for both of you. You’ll still be able to look back on the spending and gain insights together.
Happy budgeting,
-The Goodbudget Team
7 thoughts on “Happy One Month!”
When I go grocery shopping or pay for things at other brick-and-mortar stores, I don’t like holding up checkout lines. So I don’t usually input my transactions into Goodbudget IMMEDIATELY, but I usually try to take a moment to input the transaction on my phone once I exit the store. Sometimes, when I’m in a hurry, I don’t get to it right then either, but when I get home at the end of the day I try to gather whatever receipts I have from the day and input them then.
Reconciling bank & credit card statements catches items I or my spouse missed entering or misplaced the receipt.
Fortunately I don’t do any unplanned stops anymore (so far) however we do have the 3,000 credit card bill that keeps Acquiring interest unless we pay it all off from all the medical stuff that came up and being out of work and gas and food and such but working on that still which is why in week 4 I said playing catch-up
Well I really didn’t spend much last week just on gas.
I pay for most things with a credit card, or an auto-payment from my checking account. I have text notifications turned on for my credit cards, and email notifications for my bank. I add my transactions to my budget whenever I get the text about the credit card transaction, or the email about the checking account transaction, and don’t delete or dismiss the email or text until I’ve done so. This way I have reminders to track my budget if I can’t do it right away.
I have enjoyed keeping up with my accounts and reconciling them with the balances shown by my bank and my credit card. I have only one credit card and it has no interest. I have reduced the balance on that account rapidly since it is the only one I have, it was 44 percent of my spending this month! I strongly recommend this program!
Great month. I’m a long way ahead and have even planned to buy a house! If only I started this behavior 25 years ago.