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Managing money seems like it should be an easy thing to do – I have money, I need to buy things, and when I have no more money, I can buy no more things.  Right?

Wrong!

It doesn’t have to be overly complicated, but you’ll see soon that having an idea of where your money is, where it needs to go, and how much you need to make to get there, is really crucial.

The big question today is…just how do you keep track of your money, and where it goes?

Let’s start off with something really basic – paper and pen.

You can start tracking your money with something as simple as a regular old spiral notebook, but you’ll be better off with a ledger book that you can purchase pretty much anywhere that you’d buy a plain notebook…and then you can make your first entry!

A ledger notebook, if you’ve not seen one before, will be divided into rows and columns that help keep things organized.  You’ll want to record the date, a description of what you spent or received, and a balance. That way, you can use each row to put information about a particular expense – for example, if you top up your Leap card, you would put the Date that you topped it up in the Date column, and then on the same row, the amount you topped up in an expense column, and “Leap Card Top Up” should go in the Description column so later you’ll remember WHAT you spent your money on.

The important thing is to be consistent with your entries and how you record the information.  Another important piece of information is whether the entry is income or for an expense. If you get in the habit of doing it, you’ll find that it’s a lot easier to keep an eye on where your money is coming from and going to.

It’s always important to record what the entry is for – if it’s income, maybe it came from babysitting or cleaning up around the house or working at a coffee shop, Gran gives you some cash or Christmas; however the money came in, record it.  

The same goes, and possibly more importantly, for expenditures.  Whether it’s for concert tickets, new clothes, downloading some new music, whatever, knowing where your money went will help you budget once you figure out what you’re spending on because you’ll start to see patterns developing.  You’ll start noticing your daily, weekly, and monthly expenses and see that even little things add up – like filling your Leap card because you use it every day, or buying a pack of crisps every day on your way home from school or work.  It won’t break the bank, but it does add up. If you spend 20 euro a month on crisps, what else might have you spent that on?

The last bit of information you need to put down is the amount, either incoming or outgoing.  A lot of people use different colours of ink; ever hear the phrase “being in the red”? That’s because people use red ink to mark debits…and enough of those, and you start seeing red!  Same with the phrase “in the black”, which means that you’ve got money in the positive column.

Now that you’ve got that information logged comes the fun part…MATHS!  

Relax, it’s really very simple – just add the entry amount to the previous total for income, or subtract if you’ve spent money.  If you do this every time, you’ll be able to keep a close eye on what you have left!

A ledger is a great way to keep an eye on your money – people have been doing it that for centuries; in fact some of the oldest records that we have from ancient times are money transactions – tax records, treasury inventories, that sort of thing.  They survived because with money, it’s crucial to know how much you have, how much you need, and from where it’s coming and going.

We don’t have every financial record from ancient times, because they were printed on perishable materials – like paper, for instance.  Paper can be lost, water damaged, any number of calamities can befall it – and clay tablets, while they last a LOT longer, are very heavy and not terribly convenient for daily use.

So what’s a good alternative?  If only we had the entirety of human knowledge at our fingertips and could look up a solution!

Oh right, you do – it’s your phone!  You know, that thing with the calculator app that you used when you were writing in the ledger?  In addition to the calculator in your phone, you probably also have a “notepad” app that allows you to keep notes.

But if you don’t fancy using that, there are many, many apps out there that will allow you keep track of your finances.  If you have an account with a bank or An Post, they will have online banking apps that will keep track of what’s in your account, but not what’s in your wallet or pocket at the moment.

Lastly, and probably the most in depth way to keep track of your finances, is through the use of a spreadsheet program like Excel.  While they take a bit more training, you can set up a spreadsheet to calculate your entries, generate graphs and charts, and you might find that you really enjoy seeing what your money does and where it goes.  Who knows, if you find that you enjoy it enough, there’s always work for accountants!

Whatever way you decide to keep track of your finances, the really important thing is that you do it consistently and develop a pattern for yourself that you’ll be able to maintain easily.

…just maybe leave clay tablets to the ancients.