Currently Reading: The Smart Money Woman
Welcome (back) to the Fiery Ugandan monthly challenges!
Over time as I’ve indulged in reading blogs, I’ve come to enjoy the monthly challenges done by my favourites and I see them as a way to get to know them better. Even the anonymous ones.
I decided to do my own here to give my readers a little more insight into my life, while keeping it relevant. This is my chance to try out something that I would not usually have done, at least not consciously, and I expect my documentation to be as seriously carefree as the experience will prove to be.
Each monthly challenge usually involves me denying myself something or trying out something, in the hopes that it will save me some money or make me more.
The challenge of course is completely free to join, and I’ll be sharing frequently on twitter about my daily progress. You’re invited to complete the challenge with me or whenever you land upon this post, and comment below or tweet me (@fieryugandan) with your thoughts and/or how it’s going for you. Tag your challenge-related posts with #FUMoneyChallenge for me to find you and cheer you on.
This month’s challenge is to track every single expense and visually graph it out at the end of the month.
This is something I used to do when I first properly started my FI journey. I wanted to get a keen idea of how and where I was spending my money before I could draw up a budget. That way, when I did start budgeting, I’d have a real idea of the proper figures instead of doing guesswork.
I’m proud to say that I diligently tracked my expenses all through 2019, and I thought I would do the same in 2020 but, well, the world turned on its head, didn’t it. I found myself more and more just allocating money to a category or even just not spending in many “non-essential” categories at all.
So, what do I hope to accomplish this month? I’d especially like to see where I drop all those little expenses that add up – am I as frugal as I think I am? Tracking every expense and reviewing them each week used to help me have a tighter grip on my spending triggers and I need that. I have a couple of up-coming expenses that I have to save up for this Q4 (including some this month as you’ll see in the review) & Q1 2022 so anything that can help me save more, is welcome.
I’m glad to get back to documenting this FI journey, and I thought a challenge would be a great way to get back into it! Have you ever tracked ALL your expenses – cash, card or otherwise? Would you and for how long? Let me know in the comments or on twitter (@fieryugandan)!