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Renata Sanchez
Ms. Deborah Kelly
Business Management HL
23 October 2023
Expense Tracking - How do I spend my money ?
Expense Summary
After two weeks of expense tracking,
my spendings can be categorized
into seven areas. Food is the primary
expenditure, such as supermarket
purchases, ice cream, cafeteria, and
restaurants. Micropurchases are my
dominant habit, but a bigger expense
was included with my monthly Pilates
subscription (See appendix A).
Learning
I already had an idea of my major expenses due to my consistent weekly routine
encompassing food and fitness. However, these past weeks presented a variation in
entertainment expenses. Writing down my expenses revealed overspending in the cafeteria,
where I could have saved by bringing food from home. Regarding tracking habits, I
consistently tracked expenses from day one, September 29th, using my phone's note feature
(See appendix A).
Strategies
Setting budget strategies is important to ameliorate my future expenses and set clear
goals and acceptable behaviors. I think I don’t spend a great amount of money in general,
since my spendings is mainly food (See appendix A), I would consider cutting off my
cafeteria expenses and bringing food from home. In this way I would save a minimal amount
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in that segment of my expenses, but I don’t think I should make any major changes other
than that.
Budgeting
Setting and maintaining a budget has a great importance on my monthly expenses,
but it also requires significant planning, discipline and an efficient and proactive approach to
manage my finances. To make this strategy happen, it is very important to identify the fixed
and variable expenses by differentiating them between fixed expenses (e.g. monthly pilates
class), and also the variable expenses (e.g. cafeteria purchases, groceries, entertainment
and going out to a restaurant) (See appendix A). As my expenses are mainly variable, it is
harder to make a plan, so it requires a more flexible budget. Then it would be convenient to
keep tracking my expenses on a regular basis as a habit to be more conscious of necessary
purchases and the ones that are not. Another habit to implement, could be to set realistic
goals towards saving for a specific cause, such as a trip, going to a special place or
purchasing a selected item. By implementing the 50/30/20 rule, I will direct 50% of my
spendings to essential expenses, 30% to discretionary expenses (also known as wants), and
20% to savings. This overall budget will help me to follow a simple and easy to follow
framework like the 50/30/20, it will also balance my expenses, and provide flexibility
according to the situation and extending a specific percentage of expenditure if needed.
Appendix A – Categorized expenses
Description Total amount
Supermarket 15000
Ice cream 8800
Entertainment 13900
Restaurant 20000
Cafeteria 2600
Pilates monthly payment 46000
Pharmacy 1135