The spreadsheet that took me 3 months to build for grocery tracking

Everyone talks about how easy it is to track spending with an app. I tried that for two weeks and got tired of categorizing every single thing. So I built my own spreadsheet to track grocery spending specifically. It took me three months to get it right because I kept adding columns for unit prices and sales cycles that I never used. Finally just settled on date, store name, total spent, and a notes column. Now I can see I spend about $60 less per month just from knowing what I actually buy. Has anyone else found that simple tracking beats fancy budgeting tools?

2 comments

2 Comments

paule531mo agoMost Upvoted

That spreadsheet grind is real. I did the same thing with my takeout spending after realizing I was blowing like $200 a month on delivery apps. Took me way too long to figure out that just writing down "Thai food $22" and "pizza $18" was all I needed. No fancy charts or color coding, just a list. Then I started noticing patterns, like how I always ordered Indian on Thursdays because I was too tired to cook after work. Swapped it for a simple curry kit from the store and saved maybe $80 a month without even trying hard. Apps overcomplicate everything, man.

holly_green821mo ago

Spent a year tracking my coffee spending in a notebook after apps kept crashing. Found out I was dropping $85 a month just on lattes which blew my mind. Switched to making pour overs at home and now I treat myself to one cafe coffee a week.