Sánchez 1

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