Keeping a Price Journal

Keeping a price journal is a great way to save money and keep track of you spending.

The price journal itself doesn't save you money, but its tracking of your spending does.
To start your very own price journal all you have to do is find a small notebook or buy one.

The layout of your book should have a number at the top of the page. This number is your spending budget. Below that there should be some white space, it will allow you to jot down the prices of things at different stores.

The most important part of the journal is the spending chart below the white space.
It should have 3 columns; one for the name of your transaction, another for the price and the last one for the subtotal of what you have spent that month. So a good price journal would look like this (just not typed):



As you can see: I spent too much (even though this isn't my spending journal). I also spent a considerable amount on coffee that is prepared at a store. Unless I am financially stable I should not be buying that much coffee. Also if my rent didn't include utilities I would have to be much more frugal. It would be good to have a certain amount of money going to a savings account or something like that.

Remember that you are the one putting everything in the journal so you have to stay on top of it or your budget could go out the door.