Do you keep tabs on your money? I’m not talking about reading your bank statements and watching the balance, although both of those things are important, to be sure. I am talking about watching the pennies and the dollars.
I know that if I put $60 into my wallet, it can easily disappear. There are no wallet-searching thieves in my neighborhood, just a propensity for buying popsicles and household items and a few extra groceries. Sure, we need all of them, but if I didn’t have the $60 we would make do without them, and life would be just as good. Hence, I really try to avoid placing large amounts of money in my wallet. Five or ten dollars is enough to see me through emergencies like kid snacks, and for everything else there is my debit card.
I try to keep track of my small spending because I’ve realized that it isn’t exactly small. If you have time, you can create subcategories of your budget that reveal exactly how much you are spending on different items. I have a snack food category and an extra groceries category. I also have a household items category, which should really be broken down into household items we need and items that we don’t necessarily need but I was at the story anyway.
Sixty dollars a month is a lot of money over time. At the moment, I am saving up for a big trip and every bit of money counts. I’m using automatic withdrawals to save for the trip so that I don’t use that money as spending money. For me, reducing the amount of money in my wallet and moving money from checking accounts to less-accessible savings accounts really helps me avoid spending excessive amounts of money from day to day.
Do you watch your pennies and your dollars? What are your money sinks?
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