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 F³ Money Tracker Guide & Tips
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Step 1: On Tab Monthly Money Tracker, input your monthly income & expenses. I recommend doing a reflection exercise on the last completed month to help you understand average spend and identify areas where your spending does not align with your values and vision. This means going back through all of last month's income & expenses by category and documenting for reflection before setting your planned spend going forward. The expenses I have listed in this tab are simply examples. Once you have expenses laid out and a plan in place going forward, start tracking your money! I recommend updating this sheet to reflect your money flowing in and out at least weekly.
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Step 2: On Tab titled "Sink Fund Expenses" input and document ALL irregular expenses that do not occur on a monthly basis. I have listed some common examples. Once these are documented and summed up, there is a calc to show you what your monthly allocation to your sink fund should be. Sink funds are a fabulous way to help plan and manage those irregular expenses!
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Step 3: Start tracking & documenting your monthly spend & contributions towards goals! Adjust budget as needed and ensure it is realistic. I.e. if you have to begin commuting to an office and you haven't been for sometime, adjust your gas budget accordingly and be realistic.
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Step 4: Automate. In the beginning, sitting down to record your spending in excel manually is really beneficial for your money mindset. But once you've got your groove, hey maybe you're already there, I highly recommend the CoPilot app. I have tried almost every budgeting app on the market, and swear by this one. It takes a bit of time to set-up and link accounts - but it is truly life changing. I now use this app to automatically track our spending vs budget each month and at month end, I record everything into this spreadsheet for documentation (the app resets each month and this spreadsheet is good for a full year view). Of course, good things come at a cost and this is a paid app but so very worth it in my eyes. I wanted you to be able to test it out before paying, so I reached out to the CoPilot team and guess what?! You can get your first 2 months FREE and try it out with my CODE MALLORY - https://copilot.money/link/cxGTwjjE4GKq6xPL7
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Other Notes
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At the end of the year, I recommend reflecting on your annual spending! My husband and I do this every December and reference last year. How did we track towards our budget? Did we hit our money goals for the year? etc etc.
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