The personal spending audit

Today, we take the first step on our FY25 personal finance journey. Whether you’re a student living at home or a married mom of three with a vacation house in Batangas, it’s probably been a minute since you’ve thought about how much you’re spending. That’s why today I challenge you to do a Personal Spending Audit (PSA) for the full month of January.

We are going to need good data for the next steps in this process, and anything that you decide to do in the future will be somewhere on the spectrum of worthless to harmful if this step isn’t done with the right amount of serious diligence. With that said, let’s get started.

> Step 1: Build the spreadsheet:  This is my favorite part. Start a new Google Sheets or Excel spreadsheet.

Name it whatever you want. I went with “PSA - January 2025”, but you do you. You can use my Google Sheets template here.

Save your own copy (click “File” then “Make a copy”). Don't worry, I can't see what you're putting into the sheet. It's your own copy.

Nobody has to know about Hello Kitty sock collection. If the spreadsheet is too intimidating and you want to strip it down to the metal, the most important columns are the Description (what it is that you spent money on) and the Amount (in Pesos). Everything else is helpful, but if that’s getting in the way, it’s not necessary.

If the thought of building a spreadsheet fills you with dread, just do it in your Notes app. 

> Step 2: Track your spending:  Since we’re starting in the middle of the month, start tracking your everyday spending immediately. The first time I did this, I didn’t bother noting anything that was below ?100, thinking (without having done the exercise) that I didn’t really spend that much on sub-?100 things. That assumption turned out to be incorrect, so now I treat it like a calorie-counting exercise: I track everything.

Every 3-in-1. Every taho. Every $1 subscription.