Category: Personal Finance

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Credit Card Personal Finance

Why is finance charge so confusing?

Last week, I read a story from a personal finance blog, about a first hand experience of credit card’s two-cycle billing. This was followed by an update on the post a few days later to clarify what really happened after he got a call and explanation from the credit card company. He was informed that the reason for the finance charges was actually NOT because of two-cycle billing.  Instead, the finance charges on the next month’s bill was due to “grace” period no longer applicable because of NOT paying the full outstanding balance from the previous month. In contrast, here’s an excerpt from the blog on what two-cycle billing means.

“Two cycle billing is when a company computes finance charges on the average daily balance of the last 60 days rather than just the last 30 days. What that means is that they will go back two billing periods before the cardholder sent in their payment, and average the daily balance of all 60 days.”

Reading through the blog post, I wondered how come financial terms are very confusing.  I definitely agree that the best way to not experience the “two-cycle” billing or “grace” period headaches is to pay the full amount every month.  It makes better financial sense.  If you can’t do that, perhaps, it’s a good idea to learn how to protect yourself from credit card debt by some other means.

Why can’t financial terms be simple, the way red, green and yellow means stop, go and go slow on a traffic light?  Ever since my credit card debt, I’ve tried to read books on financial literacy to help me get familiar with financial terms.  Reading Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad, Poor Dad book helped me realize that money is actually flowing, hence the term “cash flow”.  I learned that money is never lost, it is just transferred from one person to another.  The only question is, is money flowing to you? or is money flowing out of you? As for finance charges, it is money flowing from your wallet to the credit card company. 🙂

I’d really love to learn more about finances and minimize my confusion.  It is my hope that sharing my own experiences with money will also help clear the confusion among others.

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Credit Card How To Tutorials Money Mindset Personal Finance

5 tips on how to protect yourself from credit card debt

A few years ago, I got into credit card debt.  I can still remember the frustration I went through, barely being able to pay the minimum amount due for my credit card.  Giving away a chunk of my paycheck every month to pay my credit card debt but could not seem to make a dent into the very huge balance.  I was foolish then.  I got my first job.  I also got my first credit card.  As they say, the fool and his money are soon parted.

1) If you realized you’ve dug yourself a hole, stop digging.

Stop using your credit card.   Leave it at home.   When I realized I was heavily in debt with my credit card.  I no longer wanted to use it.  Unfortunately, I had no choice but to use it in case of emergency.  Unfortunately for me, every month seemed like an emergency.  For a few times, I even had to use my credit card for cash advance from an ATM to pay for my house rent.  It was depressing just going to the bank to do a cash advance.   When I glanced at the hefty cash advance fee, I could only swallow my pride and promised myself never to let this happen again.

That experience left a bitter memory to me even up to this day.  Today, I don’t use a credit card.   I could easily apply for one if I want to, but I don’t want to ever experience that painful feeling of being a slave of the bank again.

2) Use a debit card instead

If you cannot use your credit card, how should you pay then?  The simple answer is, debit card.  The next best thing to use for paying your grocery, or gas, or even shopping to the mall is a debit card.   Using a debit card is like carrying a huge amount of cash (or at least enough to pay for what you are buying) WITHOUT the extra weight.   Debit card is as good as cash.  No cold hard cash to carry around. It is safe.  It is convenient.

The good thing about debit cards is that you don’t have to worry about not paying your balance each month.  You won’t be charged any interest like credit cards.  But watch out!  When you go over your checking account’s minimum balance, you can be charged a fee.

Another drawback of using your debit card is that it is very hard to dispute a transaction you made.   The bank assumes that since you manually entered your PIN (Personal Identification Number) when using your debit card, it is really YOU who is doing the transaction. In which case, you have to take responsibility for any purchase on your debit card.  So be careful.  Better keep your receipts and counter check it against the transactions on yout debit card statement.  And NEVER tell your PIN to anyone.

3) Use cash

In some parts of Asia, most people are still using cash.   You can go out with nothing but cash on hand, no credit card, no debit card.  In fact, in some cases, it might be the ONLY choice you have.

Sometimes even if you can use your credit card to make a purchase,  it could still be an inconvenience compared to cash.  Some merchants charge an additional 1 to 2% fee or require a minimum purchase amount in order to use the credit card.  It’s ironic, isn’t it?  Shouldn’t it be more convenient and cheaper to use credit card instead of cash?  Since you’re basically paying with electronic money (which is just an idea) and not a physical money like bills or coins, the cost should be considerably less.  I guess the only convenience you can get for using the credit card is not having to worry about being robbed with a gun.

4) Setup an auto-payment scheme for your credit card

Ok. So you’ve stopped using your credit card and most of the time, you’re trouble free.  But sometimes, you REALLY, REALLY need to use it.  Hence, you have a balance at the end of the month.  What if you forget to pay the balance?  Then your balance would accrue interest.  What if you did not use your credit card for a few months and didn’t know you had a balance before?  Then you’re in bigger trouble as the balance is being compounded and your credit rating may also be hit very badly.

So, a wise thing to setup is a credit card auto-payment feature.   You can call up your local bank and ask to have your credit card auto-paid using your current/checking/savings account.  Of course, you still need to make sure that your account has sufficient balance to pay-off the credit card.  Otherwise, you might run into more problems.

Using your credit card, is OK, as long as you are able to pay the whole balance at the end of the month.  This way, you only pay for money you actually used, with NO interest.  That’s what I call INTEREST FREE. 🙂

5) Cut up your unused credit cards – More is NOT necessarily better.

Once you’ve paid up you credit card balance and setup the auto-payment facility with your current account so that you always pay the balance every month, you need to ask yourself whether you really need ALL the credit cards you have.  Do you really need that 8th credit card you just received in the mail?  Note that MORE may not necessarily be better.  Even if you rarely use the cards and may not even have any balance at all on those cards, it could still be hurting your credit rating as the extra credit is under utilized.

Or perhaps you only have 1 or 2 credit cards with you but another credit card is more suitable to your needs.   For example, you travel a lot, so it makes sense to get a card that offers cash back rewards for every purchase you made on petrol.

A credit card is a double-edged sword.  As with anything in life, you need to understand what you are getting and what you have to pay for.  For a credit card, this means, you GET an extra money or credit to buy what you want.  But in the end, it is still borrowed money, and you have to PAY for it one way or another.

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Business Life Lessons Money Mindset Personal Finance

5 tips on how to fish effectively – things I learned while fishing at Taman Jaya Park

Recently, my wife and I went fishing with our friends at a nearby park walking distance from Taman Jaya LRT station.   It was  Saturday morning and the sun has just risen.   When we got there, there were already many people jogging around the area.   We hurriedly went to look for a place to put the food our friends prepared and start eating.  Didn’t I say we love to eat?  We had lots of fun eating, laughing and enjoying the experience.

Our friends brought along some fishing equipments they bought from Pudu.    So after we finished eating, we went to look for a place to cast out the nets and start fishing.

tamanjayapark

Use a bait the fish loves to eat

While we were preparing, I was surprised to know that the fishing rod we were using only has a net.  It did not have any hook or anything similar to that.  At first I had some doubts whether it could really catch some fish.  But I was soon proved otherwise.  My friend just catched a big fish with that same net without any bait!  I guess the fish was that hungry.

But that was the only fish we catched that day.  In comparison, the other guy beside us had a bountiful catch.  Every other minute or so, his fishing rod would go up and another fish would jump out of the water.   When we saw the basket he had, we were amazed to see it overflowing with maybe more than a dozen fish.  It made me think, what was he doing that we were not?  Then I noticed, he was putting something which looked like a bait on his fishing equipment’s hook.   I could not exactly tell what it was at the time what but when I saw him scraping something green at a nearby stream, I realized it’s moss.  Aha!  Maybe that is the secret!

Use a bait the fish loves to eat.  It seems obvious now just talking about it.

When I was a a child.  I had a fond memory with my Dad as we went fishing at a nearby fish pond in our school.  At the time, we used earthworms as bait in a hook to catch some fish.  In no time at all, the fish were devouring the bait we put into our fishing equipments.   Starting then, I knew fish loves earthworms.

At another time, me and my college friends went fishing at one of my friend’s fish pond.  As I was looking for an earthworm to use as bait, I came to realize that we were suppose to use leftover bread instead.  Initially, I didn’t think fish would like to eat the bread.  I thought they liked only earthworms.  I was pleasantly surprised to see the fish were as eager to eat the bread as if it were an earthworm.  They were attacking the bread ferociously and in no time at all we’ve managed to catch a lot of fish for a sumptuous lunch.  I guess in that part of the world, fish loves to eat bread!

Go where the hungry fish are

At one point, we cast the fishing nets near where we were having a picnic even though it didn’t look like any fish was nearby.  We waited for quite some time while were were busy eating hoping that maybe some fish might accidentally bump into one of the nets.   We had finished eating but the nets were as empty as before.   There were no fish in the area.  And there was no catch.

So after we finished eating, we went beside one of the fisherman, near a stream of water.  It didn’t take long for us to see that in that part of the pond, there were a lot of fish.   There was a school of fish swimming, catching some breathe on the surface every now and then.  More importantly, we saw the other fisherman was catching a lot of them.  We wanted a piece of the action too!

After a settling down and casting our nets, we were rewarded with our first and only catch for the day.  It really pays to be where the hungry fish are!

Learn from someone successful at what you intend to do

I guess we wouldn’t have caught that fish if we didn’t see the other guy was catching a lot.  In this respect, he was the successful fisherman.  My wife even thought he was a “professional” fisherman.  It seemed to me, here was a guy who knew what he was doing and he is pretty good at it.  Maybe someday, I too will.

Be Patient

It was a bit frustrating seeing the other guy next to us catching a lot of fish, while our net seemed to be lost in oblivion, never making any movement at all.  We went to the left of the guy who was catching fish.  No luck.  We went to his left.  No luck.  Then we went further left.  As we were joking around laughing, suddenly my friend noticed the movement in his fishing net.  He pulled it up and there it was!  The biggest (and the only) fish we had that day!

tamanjayaparkcatchoftheday

Have fun

It is no fun fishing alone.   It is exciting to enjoy fishing with friends and loved ones.  It’s a nice experience to just talk about things while waiting for the net to catch some fish.  I had a lot fun that Saturday morning.  It was a nice experience learning a thing or two about fishing and life itself.

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Books Business Life Lessons Money Mindset Personal Finance

How to ride a bike? Learning reflections on Robert Kiyosaki's 'If you want to be rich and happy, don't go to school'

Earlier, I was reading a book by Robert Kiyosaki, titled If You Want to Be Rich & Happy Don’t Go to School.  In the book, Robert mentions something about a quote from Dr. Buckminster Fuller,

Human beings were given a left foot and a right foot to make a mistake first to the left, then to the right, left again and repeat.

While reflecting on this quote, I remembered when I rode a bike for the first time.  At first, I my dad had to hold on to the seat, while I try to drive.  My heart was pumping with excitement.  Unfortunately, just when I hopped on the bike,  I realized it was going to the left.  I didn’t know what to do.   I panicked.  I fell.  That was the first time.  The second time I tried, the bike was again going haywire.  But now, it’s going to the right.  I panicked again.  And again, I fell.  On the third try, I noticed the bike was again going to the left.  In my panic, I immediately steered the bike to the left.  To my surprise, the bike went to the other direction.  So again, I had to steer it to the right.  And again it went to the left.  And so I repeated what I just did – to the left, then to the right.  Until, suddenly, I realized, my dad was no longer holding the bike.  I was driving the bike on my own! It’s one of the glorious moments of my life.  I knew then that no matter what happens,  I can do it.   I thought then that if I could ride a bike, I can do anything.  I can fail many times.  But I can also learn.  I can take what life gives me and find out what works.

When I was in College, me and my friends participated in a contest about creating the fastest line-following mobile robot.  We competed against students from other schools.   When I was studying the design, I was very amazed at the simplicity of the logic on how to make the robot follow the 2-inch wide black line they call “track” against the very clean white floor.   The robot, is basically a remote controlled car, with all its circuitry removed and replaced with a microcontroller which acts as its “brain”.  At the front of the car are two sensors.  Depending on what color each of the two sensor sees on the floor (white) or track (black), the “brain” would know whether it is going out of track or not.  When the car is going out of the track to the left, the brain tells the car to steer to the right.  If its going out the other way, it steers to the left.  It’s like riding the bicycle again.  If you fall to the right, you go to the left.  If you fall to the left, you go to the right.

Can life really be this simple?  How about you?  Have you experienced the same thing when you learned to ride a bike?

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Books Business Life Lessons Personal Finance

The secret to becoming an outlier – 10,000 hours

It’s been quite a while since I posted something in my blog.  I’ve been busy for the past couple of weeks at work and had a lot of things in my mind, especially with the current financial crisis and how it impacts me and my wife’s life.

The one thing, though, that I am always fond of doing, is reading books.  I read from a blog about this new book of Malcolm Gladwell titled “Outliers – the story of success”.

The new book by Malcolm Gladwell aims to explain how successful people become successful, not by identifying their traits, or what they do, but by examining their past, their history, whether they got to be successful by their own talents or by chance.  I was fascinated to see the story of Bill Gates in that book.  According to Malcolm Gladwell, the number of hours it takes to become an “Outlier” (exceptionally successful) is 10,000 hours.  That number of hours is the magic number to become an expert in a chosen field.  Long before Bill Gates became the richest man in the world, he was just a kid, who loved to program day and night, who had the extraordinary opportunity to be exposed to this technology, in a time where a PC was still an idea and computer is synonymous to BIG mainframes occupying entire rooms.

10,000 hours.  That’s a lot.  No wonder, the very successful people start out very young.  It made me think, if I want to spend the 10,000 hours to become a master in what I do, I must REALLY LOVE what I’m doing.  Otherwise, it will be such a drag and it will seem to be a punishment instead of a blessing.  The more I think of it, the more I question myself whether I’ve already earned my 10,000 hours.  And whether I really love what I do for a living.  And if I find out I don’t really like what I do, whether I would want to finish earning the 10,000 hours.

How about you?  What would you do for 10,000 hours?

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Books Life Lessons Money Mindset Personal Finance

Your Money or Your Life

For the past couple of days, I’ve been reading the book Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez.  It’s a book I bought out on a whim as I saw it on sale at 20% discount.  I was actually looking for another book, but when I saw the title, I remembered reading rave reviews about this book from some of the financial blogs I’ve read.

Money = Life Energy

The book describes money as life energy.  I realized that having a job has additional costs associated with it in terms of life energy.  For example, I use about an hour of my morning to prepare for my job.   I buy clothes to wear at my job.  I even have to take lunch, snacks and sometimes even dinner at the office canteen.  Fortunately, I don’t have to ride a cab or drive a car to and from work.  But even that takes time as I need to walk for around 15 to 20 minutes each way.  To tell you the truth, I never really thought that I was actually spending money to have my job.  The truth is, having a job actually costs money.  And here I am thinking my job is supposed to pay me. 🙂

Track Every Penny

I just finished listing this month’s expenses.  I was asking my wife earlier whether we could use a credit card to buy the groceries so that I don’t have to enter each item in the grocery list. But when I asked whether the credit card statement will show each item, like 100g of garlic, 200g potato, etc, she laughed out loud.  Then I realized, the credit card statement will actually just list one entry for the whole grocery of more than 20 items.

Crossover Point

The book also mentions something about a crossover point where the income from investments is enough to pay for the monthly expenses.  To keep track on this goal, the book’s advise is to create a chart to plot each month’s personal income, expenses and income from investments.  The chart tells a story.  For some, it starts out as expenses greater than personal income, with lots of debts.  Then gradually, debt is being paid up, expenses goes down, and income from investments moves up.  At some point, when the income from investments matches the monthly expenses, the crossover point is reached.  When this happens, I don’t have to “work” anymore.  I can do whatever I want.  I can sleep more and stay in bed in the morning.  I can spend my time just relaxing and reflecting on life’s blessings.

The book is about discovering life.  It challenges each person to have an honest self-reflection by reading through our own personal finances.  It speaks of having the freedom to say “no” to our job and do our life’s purpose, or what the “Alchemist” described as “Personal Legend”.  It paints life’s possibilities and dreams. It’s a very nice picture.  And it is something I hope to achieve.

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Life Lessons Money Mindset Personal Finance

Mindset – the thin line between scarcity and abundance

I’ve just finished reading Steve Pavlina’s latest post about “Living paycheck to paycheck”.  I don’t think I am currently living on a paycheck to paycheck at the moment, but one thing that struck me about the post is sharing from a place of abundance rather than scarcity.

On a typical day, my wife and I both love to logon to the internet and surf after we get off from work.  She likes watching TV shows online.  Her favorite, at the moment, is a Philippine’s TV drama series titled “Tayong Dalawa” (The two of us together?!).  I, on the other hand, love to checkout my yahoo fantasy basketball team.  I play fantasy basketball with my officemates and it’s one of the topics we often talk about at work.  Unfortunately, since we can’t access yahoo at work,  I’d have to check it out at home.

Since we only have one laptop at home, we have to share it together.  Sometimes, she has to watch me go through the bunch of basketball statistics for my fantasy basketball team.  And on other times, I’d have to watch the TV drama series together with her.  To a degree, it is a very nice experience, and I love spending this time with my wife.  However, at a certain point, I would rather check my favorite basketball team than watch people crying on TV.  In those times, I wonder whether buying my own PC would be the perfect solution.

In all honesty, I can actually afford the extra PC if I really want to.  However, I often wonder whether it’s really worth it.  Most of the day, I would be at the office, and I would only need the PC when I get home.  This morning, while reading Steve’s post, I am reminded about having the right mindset.  Do I serve more people by being cheap?  What about sharing from a place of abundance?  Or is this just an excuse for myself to buy what I really want?

How about you?  Have you been having second thoughts buying something you really want lately?

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Books Business Life Lessons Money Mindset Personal Finance

Searching for the book Ready, Fire, Aim – Zero to $100 Million in No Time Flat and learning how to sell

A couple of days ago, I read from a blog about a book titled “Ready, Fire, Aim – Zero to $100 Million in No Time Flat".  The book is about growing your business, whether it is from startup to a profitable stage, or from an stagnating business to skyrocketing success.  I got excited about it since I wanted to start my own business.  So immediately after work, I went to the local bookstore to look for the book.  I scoured the whole business section, but since it is only a small book shop with a few titles in it, I was more trying my luck than really searching.  After running out of luck, I went to my favorite bookstore at a nearby mall, hoping that with their bigger collection of books, I’d be able to find what I was searching for.  To my surprise, I did find the title in their database, but unfortunately, the only copy they have has already been reserved for someone else.  Oh well, there goes my chance of getting the book on my second try.

I was really very eager to read the book, and I wanted to do everything I can to get a copy of it as soon as possible.  Once I got home, I searched the internet for other bookstores.  Luckily, I found one which carried the title I was looking for.  The only catch – it was already middle of the night.  So I had to wait for the next morning to try and buy the book.  Well, I can wait.

The next day, I hurriedly finished my work and got off early to go to this bookstore, which was around half an hour commute via train.  It was a hectic and long ride given the rush hour traffic of commuters.  Once I got to the bookstore, I immediately went to the business section.  At first I tried to manually look for the book and flipped through the each title one by one, but after around 10 minutes of hopelessly checking the titles, I gave up.  I then tried to look for an information counter or a computer kiosk where I can search for the book. Luckily, I found the kiosk a few shelves from where I was.  I typed in the author’s name to search and voila, there it was, the book was located under business section 16-B-02.   I went back hurriedly to the business section and found what I was looking for.  To my surprise, the book was hard bound.  No wonder the price is a bit hefty.  I didn’t mind, as I was happy to get the book.

I went home and immediately devoured the first few pages.  I’m still reading it but I’m extremely excited on some of the ideas I learned so far.  I now know that the the first thing I need to do if I want to become a business owner, is learn how to sell.  My main goal is to sell. Sell. Sell. Sell.  It’s a scary thought for me knowing that I’m quite shy and have very little experience selling anything in my life.  It’s a big challenge for me, but I know how important it is, and I really want to learn how to sell.

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Life Lessons Money Mindset Personal Finance

5 things I learned while reflecting on my life’s passion and dreams

The past few days I’ve been thinking a lot about what my passion is.  To tell you the truth, I still don’t know what it is.  What else is out there?  Is there something more to life?  What’s my life’s purpose?  What are my dreams?

1) Have fun 

For a long time, I haven’t really asked myself what I really want from life.  What did I dream about when I was young?  Did I always want to be a programmer?  Did I want to be a doctor?  How about an airline pilot?  Honestly, I can’t really remember what my dreams were when I was a kid.  I only cared about playing, having fun with my friends.  During the day, we play basketball or do some crazy stuffs together.  When we get hungry, we climb the mango tree to enjoy its sweet fruits.  Or if we feel a bit more adventurous, we try to climb the coconut tree or go swim by the old school’s wild lagoon.  Life is so much fun.

2) Take responsibility

When I got older, I learned that life doesn’t always give us what we want.  I thought playing was the only thing that mattered in life.  But when I went to school, life became a challenge.  Everything was new and hard.  I had no friends to play with.  I didn’t even know what everyone was talking about.  There was no easy way out.  I needed to study or I don’t play at all.  I learned to go through life’s struggles and take responsibility for my own decisions.  I learned to face them head on.

3) Work hard

I learned that in life, when you want something, you have to work hard for it.  You have to have something in return.  When I got older, I learned they call it “paying” for something.  When I was in grade school, I really wanted to have the best garden in our class.  So every weekend, I would get on my bike, drive to the school and take care of my little garden.  I watched the plants grow day by day.  When graduation came, it was one of my proudest moments.  I worked hard for it.  I earned it.  I paid my dues with my sweat and patience.  Now, I have it.  And it is very sweet.

4) Treasure life’s blessings

I learned that sometimes life gives us so much more than what we ask for.  When I was a kid, all I really knew was playing around with my friends.  I went to school. I met other people to whom I can get to play and be friends with.  Together we experienced everything life has to offer.  I travelled to places I’ve never been to before, to places I never knew existed.  As I got older, I was able to visit other countries and learn from their rich culture and history.  I feel very blessed having been able to experience things I have never imagined possible. 

5) Have faith.

Lastly, I learned to have faith.  That somewhere, somehow, life will reveal itself to me in its own time.  Perhaps someday, I will look back and see what magnificent moment today is.  That everything I’ve experience so far is a like a fiber on a beautiful tapestry, each telling it’s own story, building a great picture I call my life.  Perhaps then my life’s dreams & passion will come alive. 

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Business Credit Card Life Lessons Money Mindset Personal Finance

3 tips on how to track cash expenses effectively

For the past couple of months, I’ve been trying to track my expenses.  But my problem is, I haven’t found a nice way to track cash.  Yes, I use cash.  In this part of the world, cash is still king. 

I remember when I was assigned to the US for a 6-month stint.  While in the US, I rarely used cash.  I can count on my fingers how many times I had to reach out for my wallet and spend cash.  In most cases, I used my corporate credit card.  On other times, I used my ATM debit card.  Of course, when I buy online, I can only use paypal, or my credit card.  Once a month, I would receive my statement from both my savings account and my credit card.  If I want to check the transaction real-time, I can just login online and check my credit card and bank statements through their internet banking services.  Instantly, I would know where my money went.  Sweet.

But when I got back, I had to use cash again.  The problem in most of South East Asia is that people rarely use a credit card.  Unless I am buying a washing machine, or any other home appliance, I don’t want to use my credit card.  Besides, most stores have either a minimum order to accept your credit card, or they charge the same item for a little more when you pay using your credit card instead of cash.  So, cash it is!

Track each transaction.

I tried to track my expenses monthly through my bank statements.  But I can only see deposits, withdrawals and the occasional online internet banking transactions.  It doesn’t give me any idea how I spent the cash I withdrew the other day. Now, I’m trying to track each cash transaction I make.  How? By keeping the official receipt.  Keeping the receipt of each of my cash transactions helps me know where I am spending my money.  In my case, most of my receipts come from the office cafeteria, the local grocery or my favorite bookstore.  That’s when I realized, if I wanted to cut back on my expenses, I could probably eat my lunch in the cafeteria less often.  Perhaps, keep it to only 3 times a week instead of everyday.  In addition, I could buy a book only after I’ve completely read the last one.  Or maybe, I can buy only a few items in the grocery store, not a whole-month supply.

Write it. Picture it.

I thought of carrying a small notebook with me everyday so I can take note of each cash transaction on the spot.  But when I realized I would need to carry it with me down the office cafeteria where my officemates also are also having lunch, I hesitated.  Perhaps, I’ll just keep the receipts for now.  In the end, however, I still need to consolidate all these receipts and come up with some kind of a report.  For now, I’m using an excel spreadsheet.  I just list down the date in the receipt, the amount and a brief description.  Then I try to generate a pie chart out of this data.  In excel, this is pretty straightforward.  Just select the list of transactions, then click the Chart Wizard at the top menu.  This pie chart gives me a summary of my expenses. I can take a quick look and easily picture out where the bulk of my expenses are going.

Keep it.

The reason I wanted to track my expenses is because I didn’t know where my money is going.   If I don’t know where is it going, I wouldn’t know where to cut back.  After I found out which transactions are eating my budget, I started to cut back a little bit on them and saved a little cash.  I haven’t figured out what to do with the extra money. For now, I am just keeping it at the bank.  To my pleasant surprise, I’ve seen my savings grow month after month.  It’s one of the most liberating thing I’ve felt in some time.

It’s just 3 simple tips but it helped me gain back a little control over my money, even if only to save a few extra bucks.  How about you?  How are you tracking your cash expenses?