JULY 25TH, 2005

It is vitally important to keep tracking your money. Especially today with so many transactions being electronic.

What happens if we don't track our money? Well we often tend to spend a fair chunk of our hard earned cash on rubbish! How come? Because we don't really see it happening of realise how much this rubbish spending adds up to.

If you spend money for instance on takeaways each month and not writing it down you have no idea how much you spend. The same goes for items such as newspapers, mobile phone bills, work meals and so forth.

The best solution to start sorting out yourself financially is to log each of your spending transactions. Yes I know its a bit of a chore especially as we all lead such busy lives but do it for 2 months and you will be thankful and maybe even get addicted! It becomes a bug I tell you!

For example, if you log each of your transactions in a black book for 2 months you will build a pattern up of what you are spending money on and work out areas in which you can save.

If you have 2 takeaways a week at a cost of £6 say and we can easily spend a fair bit more, this adds up to £48 a month. Over the course of a year it adds up to a whopping £576. Well that is certainly helpful if you wish to have a holiday! Cut back on the takeaways and you can afford that trip to New York you were thinking about or that flight to Australia.

There are many areas like this. Another example for you? Okay! A newspaper for example costs £0.35p. Over 365 days of the year that's a cost of £127.75. You can easily go on the Internet at work these days and check the news out online! Im sure you can even check out those page 3 girls online as well if needs be.

Already that's £703.75 over the course of the year. If after tax you make £14,000 you are spending 5% of your income over the year on newspapers and takeaways! Im sure you are already beginning to think.

I am not saying stop the takeaways... just limit them with the knowledge of how much they are actually costing you. Very few people monitor their money this way but it definitely makes sense.

With so many transactions done electronically with cards we don't realise how much we are actually spending on items. If you monitor them all at the end of a day, week etc you are one step ahead and can start to structure your finances.

Be honest with yourself. Put everything in. There is no point in kidding yourself. The extra money for yourself can pay off instead of putting it in other peoples pockets. Even if you do put it in other peoples pockets just make sure that you buy something worthwhile to show for your money such as 42" Plasma or that special holiday!

Good luck, I hope to hear some of your stories as to how you you are successfully restructuring your finances in the coming months! Its great to know how these simple money saving tips are working.