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Track your monthly spending with expensr
(June 24th, 2008 - 9:51AM)
I was looking for an online tool to track my monthly spending, and I found expensr. It's a free Web 2.0 application that's great for managing your budget.
I was able to set up an account and get going quickly. Almost immediately, expensr generated some great stats for me about my spending. Here's a screenshot of my monthly spending so far:
As you can see, my food spending is out of control. I gotta get on that.
I've only been using expensr for about two weeks, and it's already shown me that my inability to save money is epic. Perhaps next month I'll be able to take some corrective action.
expensr also has some typical Web 2.0 community-style features, such as the ability to compare your spending to others in your demographics. While some people might find it useful to compare themselves to their peers, I personally find it depressing that expensr insists on informing me that I spend way more than the average person.
My only real critique of expensr is that it suffers from a nasty JavaScript bug. Every once in awhile, expensr makes my CPU go nuts and almost locks my browser. I have to close expensr and re-open it. But since you don't really need to keep expensr open in the background all hours of the day, this is hardly a deal breaker.
There are a few other little usability nits with expensr (it loses its sort order when you edit an expense, and you can't put an apostrophe in an expense name), but these are relatively minor issues that I'm sure will be resolved shortly.
Overall, expensr is a great way to keep track of where your money is going.
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My favorite money-saving tip is to simply cook at home using fresh ingredients rather than those ready-made meals or take out.
Mom or sis would bring home a cheap meat cut and I would make a stew or a pasta sauce with the meat (cut into small cubes) in a crock pot. The slow cooking in a liquid or crushed tomatoes will tenderize the meat :) I make lots and we would enjoy the results for the next few days.
I buy bacon on sale and serve it for dinner with baked potato and vegetables on the side. Whatever bacon is left, it goes into pasta carbonara the next day (pasta, cream, parm. cheese, parsley and eggs). Carbonara takes no more than 20 minutes to make :) and is very budget friendly.
And Mushroom Risotto....I better stop here before I give Leo Tolstoy a run for his money :P