Web App Development
Tracking my personal spending.

2021


Month Accomodation Everyday Purchases Eating Out Transport Fun Occasional Purchases Exercise Other Education Productivity Travel Donations Total
Jan 2021£960£165£0£0£66£68£0£4£129£9£0£0£1,402
Feb 2021£960£134£31£6£117£68£21£3£129£9£0£0£1,478
Mar 2021£960£184£19£54£66£76£0£3£129£9£0£0£1,500
Apr 2021£960£135£99£29£67£57£11£3£129£9£0£0£1,500
May 2021£1,082£181£133£88£64£57£30£3£129£10£0£0£1,778
Jun 2021£960£259£129£94£92£91£4£8£129£10£0£0£1,776
Jul 2021£960£159£111£223£62£57£24£3£129£21£59£0£1,809
Aug 2021£1,088£186£217£118£119£57£25£3£129£18£0£0£1,960
Sep 2021£960£233£193£45£79£32£20£61£129£17£0£0£1,768
Oct 2021£974£210£227£118£103£32£0£3£129£22£0£0£1,818
Nov 2021£904£194£129£42£118£70£5£3£129£17£0£0£1,611
Dec 2021£1,867£283£13£42£102£69£27£11£129£10£0£0£2,551
2021£12,635£2,321£1,301£858£1,054£737£168£110£1,548£162£59£0£20,952

2020


Month Accomodation Everyday Purchases Eating Out Transport Fun Occasional Purchases Exercise Other Education Productivity Travel Donations Total
Jan 2020£1,291£217£214£69£164£116£66£3£0£8£0£0£2,149
Feb 2020£1,300£122£197£149£159£51£14£3£0£8£0£0£2,004
Mar 2020£1,175£185£88£99£159£51£4£3£0£8£0£0£1,773
Apr 2020£1,174£164£0£24£58£51£4£3£0£8£0£0£1,488
May 2020£1,152£219£0£24£39£45£4£3£0£8£0£0£1,494
Jun 2020£1,129£241£0£24£49£149£4£37£0£9£0£0£1,641
Jul 2020£960£198£36£24£79£24£4£3£0£9£0£0£1,338
Aug 2020£960£175£119£38£40£33£4£3£0£9£0£0£1,382
Sep 2020£982£145£142£5£96£96£4£3£0£9£0£0£1,482
Oct 2020£960£132£91£20£43£50£4£3£0£9£0£0£1,311
Nov 2020£960£143£3£20£34£50£0£3£0£9£0£0£1,222
Dec 2020£960£165£3£0£133£50£0£3£0£9£0£0£1,323
2020£13,003£2,108£893£494£1,055£766£109£72£0£106£0£0£18,607

2019


Month Accomodation Everyday Purchases Eating Out Transport Fun Occasional Purchases Exercise Other Education Productivity Travel Donations Total
Jan 2019£794£177£125£19£57£70£97£33£0£8£0£0£1,380
Feb 2019£794£199£89£19£47£32£79£30£0£8£0£0£1,298
Mar 2019£780£210£100£46£196£10£60£22£0£8£0£0£1,431
Apr 2019£780£201£135£27£133£10£46£95£0£8£0£0£1,433
May 2019£780£164£161£35£155£17£63£47£0£8£0£0£1,430
Jun 2019£1,531£254£56£42£119£75£48£22£0£8£0£0£2,154
Jul 2019£1,166£288£51£67£88£119£58£22£0£16£0£0£1,874
Aug 2019£1,149£234£25£198£80£61£43£36£0£12£0£0£1,839
Sep 2019£1,149£259£91£74£325£69£51£20£0£10£0£0£2,048
Oct 2019£1,182£240£73£104£152£61£112£20£0£10£0£0£1,954
Nov 2019£1,273£201£118£122£167£66£100£23£0£20£0£0£2,091
Dec 2019£1,182£276£74£216£63£115£80£3£0£10£0£0£2,021
2019£12,561£2,703£1,097£967£1,580£706£839£373£0£127£0£0£20,952

2018


Month Accomodation Everyday Purchases Eating Out Transport Fun Occasional Purchases Exercise Other Education Productivity Travel Donations Total
Jan 2018£557£81£322£77£272£0£70£47£0£13£0£0£1,439
Feb 2018£528£89£254£5£43£0£70£22£0£13£0£0£1,025
Mar 2018£518£52£369£10£52£0£70£22£0£8£0£0£1,100
Apr 2018£74£36£160£342£45£10£84£130£0£8£0£0£889
May 2018£651£186£209£223£75£293£32£43£0£8£0£0£1,719
Jun 2018£716£233£201£93£54£34£62£34£0£8£0£0£1,435
Jul 2018£691£252£156£8£54£0£133£23£0£19£0£0£1,336
Aug 2018£676£193£183£43£43£4£125£21£0£20£0£0£1,308
Sep 2018£794£237£120£36£18£115£46£29£0£8£0£0£1,402
Oct 2018£794£310£119£23£33£47£68£22£0£8£0£0£1,423
Nov 2018£794£133£134£28£38£79£46£22£0£8£0£0£1,281
Dec 2018£794£192£89£120£94£0£58£65£0£9£0£0£1,421
2018£7,589£1,992£2,317£1,005£821£582£863£478£0£130£0£0£15,776

2017


Month Accomodation Everyday Purchases Eating Out Transport Fun Occasional Purchases Exercise Other Education Productivity Travel Donations Total
Jan 2017£279£136£164£293£78£22£25£65£0£122£0£0£1,183
Feb 2017£407£75£264£973£145£22£55£99£0£77£0£0£2,117
Mar 2017£522£123£220£428£53£73£47£70£0£16£0£0£1,551
Apr 2017£601£88£162£41£52£0£46£125£0£43£0£0£1,157
May 2017£522£51£164£36£123£6£18£40£0£24£0£0£983
Jun 2017£509£73£107£800£49£114£7£89£0£25£0£0£1,774
Jul 2017£509£177£203£870£167£63£3£29£0£16£0£0£2,035
Aug 2017£513£97£162£58£181£0£3£24£0£16£0£0£1,054
Sep 2017£541£114£177£48£240£0£5£24£0£16£0£0£1,166
Oct 2017£765£108£261£874£195£27£10£24£0£16£0£0£2,281
Nov 2017£727£60£307£221£113£0£75£24£0£16£0£0£1,543
Dec 2017£531£67£365£64£62£42£70£24£0£26£0£0£1,250
2017£6,426£1,169£2,554£4,706£1,458£369£365£633£0£414£0£0£18,094

Income

These figures should be roughly correct, but I'm still trying to improve the data. Investment returns are averaged across the entire period of the investment.
I'm including Corporation Tax as part of my gross income to make the income more comparable to employment income. I might change this in the future.

Donations

I used to include donations in my personal spending, but I've taken that out now. I'll probably start listing them separately at some point.

Bookkeeping

I keep track of things in a plain text file on my phone that looks something like this:

--- january 2018
use rmb
50o   starbucks
20e
9.99gbp monthly spotify

This means that in January 2018 I spent 50rmb eating out, spent 20rmb on everyday items (basically means supermarket), and will spend 9.99gbp a month on Spotify (categorized as "Fun").

Using a plaintext file makes it super easy to enter new items. Much simpler than clicking "New", entering a value, selecting a currency, entering category, ....

I then have a Node script that takes the text file and generates CSV report. Email me if you're interested in it.

Categories

I have the following main categories, with some examples of what they contain:

I also have deeper levels of categories like "Everyday Purchases>Haircut" and "Accomodation>Bills>Gas".

For some items I book the cost over several months or years. For example, my phone cost £654 but instead of booking it as a one-off I depreciate it over 3 years, and book an expense of £18.17 a month.
What should be split over several months? One criterium is, could I could recover a meaningful percentage of the purchase price if I sold the item? Or, is the item meant to be consumed over a longer period of time (e.g. gym membership, Chinese lessons)?

Tracking productivity expenses is a bit tricky. Most of my travel expenses in 2017 were related to travelling to conferences. So that could also be tracked as productivity.
You can also see that unlike in October the travel in June and July did not increase my accomodation costs, because the conferences paid for it.
Any items that either my own company or my current employer pays for also won't be tracked here.