Wednesday, October 6, 2021

Do I want my receipt? Yes, please, always.


Our system of tracking household finances is one that relies on technology, but it is perhaps not the newest technology.

We track expenditures to/from our bank accounts via Quicken, which is a popular piece of software for that purpose. Of course, it's Quicken 2007, which in tech terms may as well be Quicken 17th Century.

A couple of times a week, I take the paper receipts I keep in my wallet and manually enter them into Quicken.

Terry, our household CFO, is also in there quite a bit. Our entire financial well-being comes down to her deft use of Quicken and a multi-tabbed Excel file simply titled "Debt Spreadsheet."

Now that we don't have much in the way of debt, it's more like a monthly bill spreadsheet. But it has always been the debt spreadsheet and will presumably retain that name.

I know there are better and more efficient ways to enter receipts, monitor cash flow, etc. But this system works for us, and I'm so in the habit of saying yes when a cashier asks whether I want my receipt, I wouldn't know what to do with myself otherwise.

So yeah, when the gas pump offers up a receipt, I will forever and always hit the "yes" key without giving it a second thought. We're obstinately old-fashioned that way.

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