I haven’t been actively budgeting in recent months so I’ve spent some time in the last couple of days remedying that.

Though I haven’t been budgeting, what I have been doing is tracking our expenses. Tracking is knowing what goes in and out of your account, and is something you must do to be a good steward of your money.

Here are a few things I noticed when tracking our expenses:

Last month I noticed that our mortgage payment went up 630 shekels – and our mortgage is fixed so it shouldn’t have gone up at all. I looked into it and for some reason the bank started charging us for home insurance – despite having a different insurance provider since 2023. When our insurance agent checked this for us, it showed that our paperwork was all in order and the necessary notifications had been made to the bank long ago, so we’ll get our money back. But if I didn’t track our expenses, the bank would have continued to automatically deduct this amount every month for years.

This week I noticed that a transfer I made to a different bank didn’t show up. It turns out that there were two account numbers and I sent it to the wrong one – I corrected that and the money is now in the right place.

Two weeks ago I saw that money that was supposed to be reimbursed to us by the health clinic hadn’t come in by the latest date they told me to expect. I went back into their office, and within two days the outstanding 850 shekels was in our account.

Several months ago, the horseback riding stable we had one meeting with charged us for three lessons for two children (ie six total lessons), and one lesson for another – hundreds of shekels for lessons that never took place. I got that refunded as well, and moved the kids to a different ranch for lessons.

A couple of months into the academic year, I noticed one of the tuitions wasn’t being deducted. My husband called the yeshiva and let them know they hadn’t activated the automatic withdrawal plan we had set up. If we hadn’t realized that, at some point they would have realized we weren’t paying and we would have accrued a high outstanding balance.

My husband once ordered an Adobe product. Months later, we were still being charged a monthly fee of 45 shekels for something he had forgotten about and never used – he cancelled it and we’re no longer being charged that fee.

We have another ongoing monthly expense, a charitable donation for a cause that we committed to for a year – I don’t know how long we’ve been donating for but it’s been a lot longer than that. I was glad to contribute initially but now I’d like to shift our giving to a different cause.

This isn’t an exhaustive list of things that I found, but some examples of the kind of things that come up when you track your money. What you learn when you track your expenses can save you a lot of money.

Ideally tracking includes tallying the total spent each month in each area of spending (eg, food, utilities, clothing, health, leisure, etc) so you know what you are spending your money on.

In October we reached the financial goal I shared with you last year, which was to pay off the smaller but higher interest loan of our two mortgages. (When we refinanced the track that was adjustable to a fixed rate, the two tracks of the mortgage were separated into two loans rather than one). It was an ambitious goal and tracking was critical to our success, because I controlled for the expenses that would have otherwise drizzled out with nothing to show for them, and all of that extra money in addition to the savings went to the principal of our mortgage loan.

Now I’m thinking about what I want to set as the next financial goal. It might be paying off the second mortgage loan, it might be putting it towards something more investment oriented. I’m still reflecting on that; there are pluses and minuses and I have to confront my own conservative tendencies and ask myself if that’s serving me as well as possible. Whatever I end up doing, it will benefit our finances for me to tighten up my money management even more and actively budget our money.

Let me share with you what the difference is between the two. Tracking is noting all of your expenses after the money is spent, and knowing how much you spend in each area.

Tracking is a critical preliminary step to getting your finances in order. If you’re not tracking, it’s likely you don’t have an accurate ideal of where your money is going and your money is leaking out.

Once you’ve tracked your spending, budgeting is the next step. Budgeting is looking forward, and determining how much you’ll spend in each area for the coming month. When our finances didn’t have much wiggle room, I had to carefully budget and there was no such thing as not having a budget established in advance. There’s no way we would have avoided going into debt and had an expansive life without being very on top of the details.

Budgeting is when you ask yourself, “Although I’ve spent a certain amount in a category in the past, is this really the amount I need to spend? Can I trim my expenses in that area and funnel the difference into savings? If so, what amount do I choose to allot for each area that will allow me to meet my financial goals?”

Tracking shows that I spend a certain amount of money each month on food. Budgeting is when I decide to spend the amount I want to spend, and to do whatever I need to do to keep my spending limited to that amount.

Budgeting feels very different than tracking; it’s proactive, intentional and powerful. It’s when you commit to yourself, “I’m going to set my goal and I’m going to reach it!” A good budget is a wonderful financial tool. I’m setting some parameters in my budget that will challenge me and am looking forward to seeing if I can jump over what feels like a high bar that I set.

Avivah