For the past couple of months, I've been trying to note down all of my expenses. Yes, after 27 years of my life, I've finally been doing it consistently for the past four months. If you're thinking this is my first time doing it, you're wrong. I've been trying to consistently track my expenses for the past three years. But just like my experience with working out, I kept losing consistency. The first time I did it, it only lasted a month. Then I forgot about it. Then I tried again. It lasted for three weeks, and I skipped it again. It's always this cycle whenever I try to build a good habit. Finally, in March this year, I decided not to lose again.

This year marks my fifth year of being a salaryman. Honestly, I should have built this habit much sooner. If you think about it, writing down an expense doesn't even take a minute. You just open your favorite money tracking app (I personally use Money Manager) and write it down. That's it. It's so simple. Yet even something this simple is so easy to forget. Actually, not even forget. Sometimes we're just lazy. Imagine doomscrolling TikTok or Instagram for hours. But writing down your expenses? "Pfftt... I'll do it later."

One day becomes a week. A week becomes a month. Then you forget about it completely. I told you I always failed to maintain this habit. So why do I keep coming back? Well, one of the reasons is my friend, Alif, who's always diligent about writing down every expense whenever we hang out. Always. Let's say he's paying for a coffee. He takes out his phone, pays using his banking app, then immediately opens his money tracking app. Every. Single. Time. No postponing. Anything can wait. He writes down the expense first, then do his thing. My father was an accountant his whole life. He tracked every expense using nothing but pen and paper (and then move it to spreadsheet of course), and I saw him do it for years. But somehow, the person who finally inspired me to do the same wasn't my father. It was my friend.

I once saw an Instagram video from one of those financial influencers. He said something along the lines of, "If you're busy writing down every single expense, even a tiny parking fee, then you're pathetic. Why don't you focus on increasing your earning power instead of worrying about small expenses?" Maybe those weren't his exact words, but you get the idea. Well, I disagree. If I can't manage the little money I have today, how can I expect myself to manage more money in the future? He made it sound like tracking your expenses takes forever. It doesn't. It takes 30 seconds. Maybe even less. Writing down your expenses isn't what steals your time. Instagram does. TikTok does. Netflix does. Twitter does (sorry young kids, It's not X).

So what's the deal with tracking your expenses? Well, if you want to do something more with your money, writing it down is the first step. You want to invest? Write it down. You want to start a small business? Write it down. You want to lend money to your friend? Write it down. You can't go very far if you don't know where your money is actually going. Before you think about making more money, you should first understand how you're spending the money you already have. Let me show you what my spending looks like.

This is my expense breakdown on April. The first thing that caught my attention was food. Almost a quarter of my spending goes there. I knew I spent quite a bit on eating out, but I didn't expect it to be that much. Transportation came in second. That makes sense because I commute quite a lot on that month. Health was surprisingly high too, mostly because I had a few medical expenses and I had also started playing tennis (I count sports as part of my health budget). Without tracking my expenses, I would've guessed completely differently. That's the interesting part. Most of us think we know where our money goes. We don't. We remember the big purchases because they hurt our wallet. But we forget the small transactions that quietly add up. Once you know where your money goes, you can decide if that's actually how you want to spend it. And that's something you can't do from memory alone.