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Can we talk about how I tracked my spending wrong for 8 months until my sister called me out
I used to just round every purchase to the nearest $5 in my budget app and call it close enough. My sister looked at my sheet over Thanksgiving and said "you are hiding $200 a month from yourself and you know it." I went back through my bank statements for 3 months and she was dead on, I was off by $187 in October alone because of all those little $3 and $4 coffee runs I kept writing down as $5. So I switched to logging every single receipt no matter how small, even the $1.50 parking meter, and keeping them in a shoebox until Sunday when I enter them all. First month doing it honestly I found out I spend $64 a month on vending machine snacks at work, which I never would have guessed. It is annoying and slow but my budget finally matches what is actually in my account at the end of the week. Anyone else get called out by family and actually change how they track stuff? What finally made it stick for you?
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logan_ellis1mo ago
The $187 off in October thing hit me hard because that is exactly how it goes, all those tiny coffee runs add up and you never feel it leaving. Good on your sister for saying something, mine would have just judged me silently. I still round stuff sometimes but you're right that it never matches the account at the end of the week.
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