Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Tracking my Spending with MDS

I will start by telling you that spending money is something at which I excel.  My favorite things to shop for are clothes, home decor and Stampin' Up supplies.  I also LOVE to shop for birthday presents and Christmas presents because those expenses are justified and I don't have to feel any guilt!  My DH, on the other hand, is extremely good at saving money.  I'm always thankful for him each time we encounter an unexpected expense.  If it were just me, there would be absolutely no savings and we would still have a dishwasher that doesn't actually wash dishes.  For quite some time, I have tried to have a budget and track our (or should I say MY) spending.  My youngest sister, who is a CPA, even gave me her household spreadsheet and helped me set it up so that I could just plug in numbers and everything would be calculated for me.  It worked for a couple months and then it became a headache.  I have even tried some of the budget sheets that I have found on Pinterest but they would work for a little while and then I would lose track.  I think I have finally figured out what was wrong.  None of what I was working with was pleasing to look at.  A spreadsheet makes my stomach hurt just looking at one because my mind doesn't work like that.  So, I started thinking of what I could make to help me and decided to try something in MDS.  I first came up with all the categories in which I spend and created a framed space for each one.  The picture below shows the first page of my project.



I have a zippered pouch in which I keep all receipts until I record them on my new creation.  Let me start by saying that I am only tracking what I am spending so that I can set up a budget.  I just needed to have something with which I WANTED to work!


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