The Importance of an Income-Expense diary

The most important thing is to take exact note of your income and expenses, even as an individual! It is mandatory at a company to take care about incoming and outgoing cash expenses, otherwise bankruptcy could occur. But the same is the case for the individual: you must follow money as it moves, and drive money on its way, then everything will be alright!

Take a notebook and jot down the income and expenses of the actual day every evening! Precisely! This is the only way which makes it reasonable, if you take notes precisely! At the end of the month summarise how much you have spent. One or two months later, you will discover where your money flows away and what it is you spend more on than necessary. You will know how much money you have got, you can pre-calculate and avoid bankruptcy. The Income-Expense diary is the mirror of your relationship to money.

You don't need to spend much time assessing, only two or three minutes daily, and believe me, everything will be all right with the financials in your life. Here you can find an established system for yourself with ways to organise your expenses. If you want to check the background of a certain section more precisely, you will need to take skilful notes (as exact as possible) about the money movements of that area of your spending. For example, you need to know which kind of food you spend the greatest amount of money on, and you need to divide your 'shopping' section into different foodstuffs. Takes notes about credit card and cash payments as well.

Keywords of the Expense Diary:
- Shopping: food, drink, sweets, food-supplements;
- Traffic: gas, parking tickets, season-tickets;
- Communication: telephones, Internet, post office;
- Harmful passions: cigarette, drugs, coffee;
- Meals: breakfast, morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack, dinner;
- Free time: party, sport, travel, casino;
- Culture, education: theatre, cinema, concerts, books, newspapers;
- Accommodation, surroundings: technical utilities, household devices, equipment, garden-building;
- Cosmetics;
- Medicines;
- Financial matters, investments;
- Utilities, rent;
- Clothes;
- Charity;
- Etc.