As many of you know, I keep track of my purchases, savings, and spending like a crazy lady. I have a slight Excel obsession and love to be able to look at a well constructed spreadsheet of my finances. For those of you who might be as crazy as me, I wanted to let you know how I keep track of everything.
I have experimented with a lot of different spreadsheet setups, but my favorite is this Grocery Savings Chart by MommySnacks. It is totally free to download and I will list her instructions for importing to your computer on the bottom of this post. Please DO NOT add any of your personal information into the chart that you see through the link above. It is a public record and available to everyone who looks. I want to help you maintain your privacy!
This spreadsheet is great because it is so easy and has great categories. There are sections for the Quarter of the Year you are in (I don’t use that), the Date of your shop, the amount you Spent, the Savings listed on your reciept, the Store you shopped at, and any Notes that you want to document. I have also added two additional columns to my own spreadsheet: Coupon values (I want to know how much I save in coupons) and CAT‘s produced (so I can see how much I make in CAT’s). Once you enter your shopping data, the spreadsheet does the rest of the calculations for you. I have one of these set up for my grocery stores and a second set up for my drug stores.
The next step is finding a place to keep track of your rebates. Tons of rebates fly by us and it is impossible to remember every one. I use Rebate Tracker for that reason. You can catalog the rebate information and when you mailed it. You will never have to remember when and where again! When you get your rebate check, you just mark it as recieved and it will shift it over in your list. Very helpful.
I also keep a running total of recieved rebate amounts in my spreadsheet. I like to be able to subtract the amount so that I can see what my actual savings is. I know, I’m a geek!
My suggestion to you is that you also keep your reciepts for a few months. I keep mine filed by month in my coupon binder with my coupon inserts. You never know when you may need to pull one out. I’ve had more than one occasion where a product has been expired or faulty and I’ve had to bring it back to the store – and I’m talking CVS and Walgreens, not Best Buy! It is much easier for everyone if you still have that receipt. I only mention it here because if you do end up making a return, it’s a credit towards your purchases. You’ll want to make sure that you make a note of that savings – which you may not get unless you have that receipt.
There are lots of ways to organize yourself – I’m just telling you what works best for me. The most important thing is to be able to see how much you are spending and how much you are saving. It will motivate you more than you know!
Here are the instructions for downloading the spreadsheet to your computer per Mommy Snacks site:
- File => Export => .XLS
- Save in your personal folder on your computer
- It will now be accessible in Excel on your system.
If you do not have excel and want to use Google Docs, still save as above and then:
- Open Google Documents (it’s easy to register as a new user – I love it!)
- Upload (in blue menu bar)
- Browse for the file you saved
- Name it and Upload