How I track my expenses

Photo generated by ChatGPT. Pretty cool

"What do you use to track your expenses?"

It's a good question. The client wanted to get serious about their money, and this was the natural first step. How do we track expenses? Because this is the first commandment of personal finance: Thou Shalt Track Thy Money. Every book, every blog, every adult (and child) will tell you: know where your money goes.

But my answer surprised them.

"I don't track my expenses."

The look on their face was something between confusion and mild betrayal — and I suspect you're wearing it now. This is the sort of thing you don't hear. And coming from someone licensed to give financial advisory services? What heresy is this? How can I not track my expenses?

But hear me out. I'm not being reckless; in fact I know where my money is going. I do track my money. It is just that I track from the other end. I track my savings.

Most people save what's left after spending. I spend what's left after saving.

Here's what actually happens.

The moment my income comes in, I set money aside. For saving. For investing. For short-term goals. For months of low income. This is the money for Future Me. For the unknowable version of Future Me who may not be working, or who might fall ill, or who simply wants choices later. That portion leaves first. It doesn't wait to see what's left over. It is the first thing.

Then I set aside what I have agreed to. The insurance. The mortgage (and in my case, my decided-upon CPF amount [1]). The bills that arrive whether I like them or not. These aren't choices; they're commitments. I account for them next.

And the rest?

I spend it. All of it. Freely, and without a spreadsheet in sight.

Why This Works

Because by the time I reach the "spend it all" part, the other things that matter — my investments, savings, insurance, fixed bills — have already been taken care of. They came first, not last. They're not at the mercy of whatever's left at the end of the month. They're protected at the start, by design. And this matters especially as a self-employed individual; my income varies massively from month to month.

When I spend the remainder without tracking it, I'm not being careless. I'm spending money that has already done its important work. Every dollar left in that account is, by definition, mine to enjoy. There's nothing to feel guilty about, and nothing to monitor. The discipline already happened. It happened earlier, before payday. It happened when I decided how much I wanted to save.

This is why the order matters so much. Saving what's left after spending sounds reasonable, but it puts your future last in the queue: behind every Tall Decaf Cappuccino from Starbucks, behind every "I'll start next month", behind Today Me. I'm not valuing the future over the present. I'm making the future present. We discount tomorrow savagely, precisely because today is so much more tangible. Setting money aside first is how I drag the future back into view, and refuse to let it be the leftover.

The freedom to not track my spending is something I earned, by tracking my savings first.

Here's the Part I Have to Be Honest About

This works, but it works because of two specific factors.

The first is that I am by character not a spender. I don't splurge on things. My largest expenses are investments and insurance. I drink water from water coolers. I eat cheap meals at hawker centres. I hardly buy clothes. I'm not restricting myself to a minimum [2]. I simply never built the habit of spending in the first place.

The second, I say this with immense gratitude to God: my income comfortably exceeds what I need to spend. There is enough room that after saving and after my commitments, what remains is genuinely surplus. I can afford not to watch it, precisely because there's slack in the system. That’s not to say I earn a lot; I am in this situation due to the first point.

Not everyone has that slack. Not everyone has that character trait.

And I would be doing you a disservice if I pretended my method works regardless of circumstance.

If money is tight, if the gap between income and expenses is narrow, then tracking isn't optional. It's essential. When there's no margin for error, you need to see every dollar, because every dollar is doing a job. The freedom I'm describing sits on the far side of a threshold, and not everyone has crossed it yet.

So I'll say plainly: if your saving isn't on track, track. Track everything. Find the leaks. This isn't a licence to stop paying attention; it's a description of what becomes possible once the foundation is solid.

The Real First Step

So what did I tell my client? I told them the first step isn't a tracker. It's a decision: what leaves the account first, and how much. Treat savings and insurance as a need, not a want. Treat the future as a necessity, not a nuisance. Treat the present as equal to the future, not superior. Don't just pay attention to your money; instruct it where to go before it gets lost in the minefield of online shopping.

When we dictate where our money goes, we are tracking savings. And the tracking that most people do at the end of the month, we do at the beginning, on the only line that truly matters: the amount we set aside before we spend. We track expenses only if we have to, not because someone told us to.

Get that line right, and the rest can take care of itself.

Save first. Then spend freely.

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I write on topics related to financial habits and decisions. Do explore my other articles at https://www.williamseah.com/blog if the ideas resonate. Drop me an email at reach.william@gmail.com or text me at 9673 1523 if you'd like to chat over coffee or whisky.

[1] As a self-employed person, I top up my CPF voluntarily. Read more at the link.

[2] Just as I was writing this, an article on Colin Lau was featured on CNA Insider. He retired at 35 and his monthly expenses are less than S$150. I admire the clarity; I'm not attempting the same thing. "This Singaporean retired at 35 without getting rich. Here’s how he made it work" https://www.channelnewsasia.com/cna-insider/singaporean-colin-lau-retire-35-flat-stop-fearing-retrenchment-6296171