At one time or another most of us have experienced some kind of frustration when trying to get a grip on managing our finances.  No matter what your income bracket, let’s face it, money has a way of getting away from us. Over the years, I’ve learned that tracking your spending habits is the first step to gaining control over our finances. In every financial education workshop that I’ve developed and facilitated, every one-on-one counseling session and every credit or budget workshop, we discuss using the spending log.  I’m now known as “the spending log lady” when I run into people who have heard me discuss this very important tool. I hope that you will find this tool as beneficial as I know it can be.
 
One of the best ways to assess your finances is to pay very close attention to how much money you have coming in and how much is going out. Tracking your income and expenses should be the very first step in preparing for developing a budget. Using a spending log will reduce the amount of guessing that is done in budget development. You will have actual numbers for each category of spending.