October 10, 2022
Tracking expenses will teach you to make an appropriate budget.
Tracking our expenses is not a usual thing I do because I am confident that my budgeting is enough for it. But even I am following my budget, there is still some adjustments I made out of it because I need also to address some of our needs, needs that sometimes not included in the budget.
Since 
You might be confused why there is a budget that came from me. Let me explain. My husband is the only one working for us. He gave all of his salary to me, no more and no less. Then, I have to budget it according to our needs. You might already knew it because I already posted a blog about budgeting is absolutely needed.
I know that his salary is not that enough to provide our needs especially for our allowance. Allowance means to me is the the money I need to buy needs such as vegetables, merienda, fare and other needs not listed as a standard needs. Im sorry because I don't know the right terms to be used in budgeting or tracking expenses. I just do it according to how I understand it.
We have a tricycle and that is a side hustle for my husband. I never asked his income from it but he will buy some merienda, vegetables or fish for our family he had some income from it. Those expenses that comes from him is not included in my monitoring for this week's expenses.
I am not that good in technology and I don't even have a digital budget tracker. Please bare with me as I only use a notebook and here it is.
In tracking our expenses this week, here's what I've got.
Here's the total expenses according to the category I set.
Allowance : 443.00
Bills (Electric) : 110.00
Grocery : 1539.00
Clothing (socks) : 100.00
Allowance includes vegetables or anything for our viand everyday, fare and some food for merienda.
Electric Bill comes once a month only and this month we only have 110.00.
Grocery. I am having groceries usually once a month. I already set a budget for it.
Clothing. Honestly I never had a budget for it in my budget list because I don't have any money for it. We can only buy new clothes every December because I will get a budget from my husband's Christmas bonus or 13th month pay. But since my husband socks were already tattered, I felt pity on him and I needed to buy some socks for him. Since I have a limited budget, I only bought socks from Ukay-ukay or pre-loved socks.
Fortunately I found socks for only 5.00 and I was able to select 5 pieces too and it's worth only 25.00. I find another at 25.00 each and found 3 pieces and it's worth 75.00. So, I got 8 pairs of socks for only 100.00. Here are they.
My realizations
This is my current budget allocation. If you noticed I have 250.00 for water and electric every pay day. So in a month I have 500.00 for water and electric. As of now, we only consumed minimum for water which cost 195.00.
I also checked our three consecutive electric bills and it has 109.00, 102.00 and lately is 110.00 and it has an average of 107.00.
I realized that I gave a budget more for our water and electric consumption and I need to put some budget for clothing. I will cut some from the bills and will put some for clothing. I will also add more for allowance as this is also needs a greater amount.
Tracking our daily expenses really help us to make an appropriate budgeting. This will also shows what category really needs a big amount in the budget. Tracking it will also shows where your money goes.
I remember my late father who always track his expenses after he got home from the market. He always check where his money goes. He will check even to the last peso. Sometimes he will wonder where the last peso go until he realized that he bought one piece plastic cellophane which costs only one peso that time.
Are you tracking your expenses too? If yes keep it up. If not yet, give it a try and see where the money go.
You can also join the Hive PH Community Blogging contest for October about finances
P.S. The first week contest winner was already announced and here I am still posting mine. Contest is just something that push us to do it but learning from it will depend on how we do and understand about it. I am still a winner because I have realized and learn something from this activity.