Interdiciplinary
Fin 1050 -- Personal Finance
In personal finance I was required to keep a daily spending diary which kept a detailed spending of my daily and weekly spending.
Daily Spending Diary reflection
Keeping a daily spending diary was an interesting experience and with a
good budgeting technique helps keep spending under control and gives information
needed for good money management. Through analyzing my weekly spending I found
that I spend quite a bit less than what I earn. This is due to my budget. I
budget my money which goes mostly towards food and shelter with a small amount
saved for leisure. This spending diary proved to me that I am effectively
managing my short term finances for my income so that I can live well and
achieve financial goals. Keeping this diary made sure I was sticking to my
budget.
I found that most of my spending is with credit and the rest with cash.
Weekly grocery purchases are usually too large for cash and most of my leisure
expenses are through websites so the things I use cash for are small. Keeping
track of credit expenses is harder than cash. When you run out of cash it’s gone
but when you run out of money you can still spend on credit. Keeping a daily
spending diary is a great way to keep track of weekly and monthly credit
spending so that you don’t go over. I usually keep a mental note of how much I
have spent on credit for the month but everyone can overestimate their money. I
did catch myself about to over spend for the month with the information from the
journal one time. I would like to spend more with cash but it is not wise to
keep enough cash for groceries on hand. I cannot spend less on food and stay as
healthy as I am or work out as hard as I do so I can’t cut that expense. I can’t
spend less on rent and my clothing expense was the only one for three years. I
only made about 10 leisure expenses in 3 months with the largest one being 44
dollars. None of my spending can be cut but it’s well within my income.
I talked to my grandfather about my daily spending diary and he said it
was a pretty good idea. He has a budget that is massive and he always comes
within a few hundred dollars of it. He told me when I started having an income
of any kind that the first and most important thing in personal finance is a
budget. He said there is how much you make after taxes and there is how much you
are spending and there is a bottom line. You cannot spend more than you are
making sums up personal finance. A lot of people make budgets but don’t keep
them because they don’t keep track of their spending. The daily spending diary
is a great idea for making sure you stay within your budget and that your budget
is feasible. Overall this assignment was very useful and I might keep up with
the daily spending journal to make sure I am on budget.