How I keep track of our finances

When we moved to MO we weren't really worried with our finances.  Don't get me wrong, we have always been frugal.  We have always went to the thrift stores for all of our clothes, occasionally I would have to buy work clothes from a discount store or dollar store (Dollar General).  We would frequent the thrift stores several times a week for deals.  We would buy school supplies, books, presents, toys, anything that you can think of that a person would need.  We never realized how much we would spend. 

We are now living on a very limited income and we need some new ideas to incorporate into our budget.  So, I started this new way of tracking our spending.  My program, which is ever evolving, is done on a spreadsheet.  Let's take a look at March:

Every day I tally our water usage, electricity usage, and auto gas usage.  I also have an area for notes for today.  On the other side is this:

This is where I tally the total amount spent for shopping, total for the day, & the egg count.  I know I haven't finished with the eggs, and I have to put in some more receipts for two days.

I know, your thinking oh my goodness, but it is helping us figure out where our spending is and how we can cut our spending.

Okay on to the food expenses:

Everyday I record what we eat and the price that it costs us.  It is then totaled for the day and the month.  I have a cell for fast food.  I also have determined the average for each person in our household.

On this spreadsheet I have tabs for groceries, animals, house expenses, gifts, homesteading, goals for the year, month comparison, and utilities.  Ideally every time we go shopping I input the information on the corresponding sheet.  It seems time consuming but I spend about 10 minutes a day typing in information and on days that I input receipts I can spend up to 1 hour, depending on how much shopping was done.

Amazingly we have seen that our junk food buying in December was to much, so in January we really watched this spending.  It followed through to February.

As I said this spreadsheet is ever evolving, I see things everyday that needs to be added, or it is just not helping with our budgeting.  We now constantly ask ourselves, do we really need to go to town?  What can we do to combine our trips, because let's face it gas is not cheap!