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Newly retired one here and working my way through safe withdrawal rates, the 4% rule etc. I subscibed to Monarch to monitor expenses. My question: how many of you out there monitor every I and O on a spreadsheet (looking at you engineers) vs just seeing what’s left in the spending account each month, quarter, year etc?
I keep track of expenses, but don’t really do a lot of tracking of income. I have a pretty good idea of my income, and as long as expenses are less than that, I’m ok.
Yes, I used Excel to track all my monthly expenses and investments. It helps me spend freely without guilt or fear on things I value. It also helps me stick to my plan when markets are volatile. It fits my personality and helps me sleep at night.
There’s tracking and there is tracking. I’ve never been much for precisely tracking spend except in the old days of international travel with paper money, but I do spend consciously i.e. I’ll know roughly whether I’ve spent $250, $500 or $1000 in a week on top of recurring bills. Actually most of that day to day spend now goes through a debit card that I can review with an app in an account which I deliberately top up monthly.
I think in retirement I’ll try to more precisely track at least for the first couple of years which will allow me greater insight into cashflow and thus enable me to maximise cash deposit terms etc*. I’m planning on having surplus relative to my self-allowed drawdown so tracking the delta will allow me to see how much theoretical blow-out fund I accrue.
*I currently have a bunch of inefficiency that doesn’t bother me too much as it’s better than an accidental overdraft if a direct debit gets screwed up, but part of a simpler life will be reducing excess buffers and redundant accounts.
Question: Why do you pay day to day expenses with a debit rather than a credit card? You can get a credit card with either cash back or points. You also can challenge a purchase with a credit card if something goes wrong such as a defect in the product. Some credit cards also extend product warranties. Also I believe that if your card is compromised by something as a skimmer say at a gas station you do not have the protection that you have with a credit card.
I’m not talking major purchases where I benefit from credit card protection and can’t generally be bothered chopping and changing too much for cashback cc deals.