Tuesday, May 03, 2011

Receipts and More Receipts

I gave up on ever getting my Quicken file caught up and just started fresh this year, tracking everything on Mint and Google Docs.  I even kept up with it for the first couple months.  Or at least I thought I was caught up after February - until I started going through our receipts today only to find some from the middle of February all the way up to Sunday.

It makes me wonder how in the world we can accumulate so many receipts!  And also, how does time go by so fast?  It seems like just last week, or at the most a couple weeks ago, I had everything caught up.

How important is it really?  Thankfully not life and death - or we'd be dead by now - or maybe I'd be better at keeping up, but I guess we'll never know.  I keep up with the bills and track transactions on our bank's website or on Mint.com.  The main thing I need to do is separate my receipts - for groceries and household expenses - from all the other receipts so I can keep track of the money I'm spending.  It would be easier if I just took $300 in cash out of the bank every month and spent that, or even used my debit card and kept track of everything in my check register.  But, I use a credit card to get the cash back and have to keep track of my credit card expenses in relation to my checking account - which really isn't a separate account, just a number in my spreadsheet.  Anyway...