I used to think budgeting meant building complex spreadsheets or tracking every dollar obsessively. It felt overwhelming, so I avoided it.
But the one thing that made the biggest difference for me wasn’t an app or a system — it was simply writing down what I spent every evening.
No judgment, no pressure. Just:
"Today I spent 3 on coffee,12 on groceries…"
After a week, patterns started to show.
After a month, I saw where my money was quietly leaking.
That small habit helped me become more aware and intentional with money. No fancy tools — just a notebook.
Curious — has anyone else tried this kind of "low-tech" approach to budgeting? Did it help?
*One habit that helped me get control of my spending*
byu/AnyJellyfish6104 inpersonalfinance
Posted by AnyJellyfish6104
12 Comments
You’re just using a paper instead of a digital copy (spreadsheet). Isn’t it all the same?
The spread sheets worked fro me at first but I stopped updating them after about 2 months since my expenses haven’t changed. And yet… always broke. Mathematically I should have a couple hundred left every month.
Then I realized, too many subscriptions. Too many stops at the gas station for drinks etc.
To get out of debt. Can’t have any fun that costs money lol
You know, I don’t hate the idea. I think it can help for a while. I diligently track everything with a budget and mid-month sort, and that helped for a long time, years even. But eventually the visibility alone wasn’t enough to change habits or keep spending down. There’s a deeper psychological thing involved with spending, I think consumers can only be so immune to the intense advertising pressures of everyday life. I don’t know a better strategy than keeping things visible to be sure, but it’s personally given me limited help over time.
I once was in college and realized I spent $300 on McDonalds one month from my credit card bill. I learned to cook a bit more after that.
I think if you wrote it down, you should be able to act faster than realizing it after a month from the card.
I made a spreadsheet but this is the same as what I’m doing. I round the dollars, check the 3 credit cards I use, & type in what I spent each day. I’ve got a little highlighted cell that tells me how much per paycheck I have free to spend & I watch that number go down each 14-day paycheck period.
The general thing that I avoided with the typical budgeting tools is all the categories telling me that I’m allowed to spend this much a month on gas, on food, etc. I did take into account my automated monthly bills when determining how much I was “allowed” to spend each day.
>>> I used to think budgeting meant building complex spreadsheets or tracking every dollar obsessively
It sounds like you’re still tracking just manually and in a less efficient way?
Are the comments also AI generated?
You didn’t want to track every dollar obsessively so you…track every dollar at the end of every day?
I went the more advanced way, when I was younger I used Microsoft Money for the first time and tracked both my income and my expenses. It changed me.
But the coolest part is that it doesn’t matter how you do, just that you do it. Even a little bit. Your way is as perfect as any other. It works well. As you say…” helped me become more aware and intentional with money.” That’s gold.
I have family members who still use the envelope method for budgeting. That simple basic method has sent their child to Europe (multiple times), paid her College tuition (Grad School was on her) gave them two 2-week vacations each year and will protect them in retirement.
Congrats.
Paper and pen for expenses, ChatGPT for Reddit posts. A man of many talents I see 🙄
You used chatGPT to “write” this but are wondering if anyone else uses paper…
That’s exactly what I started doing about 15 years ago. Like the OP, I couldn’t hack budgeting, no matter what system I tried. Finally, I gave up and just started entering my spending into an Excel spreadsheet. Then I began categorizing all my spending. This allowed me to find my money leaks. After doing this for a few months I started projecting what my upcoming bills would be and what I would have left over. Right around that same time I also began automatic transfers into several savings accounts. That way the saved money didn’t hit my spending account.
This was the way I sort of backed myself into budgeting. Except I don’t call it budgeting. I call it my spending plan.
I later tried Rocket, which automated the recording of my spending. From that experience, I learned that I need to be able to write down my spending manually, and the experience of doing this allows me to better understand my daily cash flow. Rocket’s automation was wasted on me. Manually entering my spending is not as troublesome for me as it seems to be for others.
BTW, I still do my “budgeting” this way and am perfectly happy with my system.