7 ms·

I used to do this during my first real job and was tracking every sandwich I bought, then one of the senior engineers told me to stop wasting time with it and m

I used to do this during my first real job and was tracking every sandwich I bought, then one of the senior engineers told me to stop wasting time with it and make more money, and then I was enlightened.

alexnewman 9mo ago
Agreed this style of making money may have made sense when the world was more Sane but there’s no way to penny pinch yourself into a house in 2026
- michaelrpeskin 9mo ago
  25 years ago when my wife and I were poor grad students we had to do this. I tracked everything religiously and she cut coupons for the grocery store. We were generally positive about $100/month at best. Tracking it allowed us to not go negative. As soon as we got real jobs with a real income, we didn't waste time with that. Our philosophy now is to just make sure that we spend well under our means and not track. We don't penny-pinch, but we still keep some of the grad school "do I really need this?" mentality. Our normal spending is somewhere under 1/2 of our take-home (including mortgage), so we just don't worry about it and keep saving. It helps that we don't have fancy tastes. It's a nice stress free way of saving and we don't have to get neurotic about tracking every penny either.
  - ghaff 9mo ago
    It probably worth at some level not totally losing track of various subscriptions or routine daily purchases. Won’t buy you a house but can be a few thousand a year.
    - michaelrpeskin 9mo ago
      One of the things that the tracking taught me was to be allergic to subscriptions. I only have a few where significantly more convenient because I know I'll use it. Outside of our phones (and the kids don't get phones), we have one music service for the family, I'll allow two video streaming services and if the kids want to add one, they have to pick one to cancel, and I have a coffee subscription because the owner lives down the street from me and it's fresher than I'd get in the grocery store. It's a good point about the routine daily purchases, I never thought of that. But I live semi-rural so I'm not out every day wandering around the city and picking up a snack or anything like that. I imagine that could add up.
      - ghaff 9mo ago
        That’s about where I am along with a couple bundles plus a few computer related subscripts like Backblaze, VPN, and Adobe related. To the other point, a lot of people have a more or less daily Starbucks or other breakfast related habit.
tonyedgecombe 9mo ago
Not that a sandwich will make much difference but you have to remember that employers like their staff to be indebted, it makes them compliant.
- tossandthrow 9mo ago
  It is not really binary. I hate budgeting and still save around half my salary. Though I do realize that this is a different game for some people, where some need it more than others.
  - kassner 9mo ago
    You are the exception. Most people follow the “Parkinson’s Law” for money.
miroljub 9mo ago
Here's another enlightenment for you: Tracking expenses doesn't take more than 5-10 minutes per day, if you do it daily. With the correct workflow, it shouldn't take more than 30 minutes per month. There are even apps that would do that for you without any effort, though not so perfectly as fine tuned apps. And now, the enlightenment part: how is expense tracking preventing you from making more money than visiting hecker news, reddit, social media, listening to the radio, watching TV, reading the news, or a million other things? Do you really spend all your waking hours earning more money so tracking expenses for a few minutes would make you make less?
- ajb 9mo ago
  This begs the question though, of why individuals still need to do this like a 17th century clerk, when it costs their counterparties fractions of a man-second. Imagine if their was a law which said, every business that takes a credit card has to supply the consumer with the data in standard, machine-processable format (ie not pdf) via their credit account (IE, not making obtaining their email address a condition).
  - fragmede 9mo ago
    Or you could parse PDFs and give them an email address. If you want to live like a 17th century clerk because of rules you've made up in your own head that you must follow like an equally outdated religion where the Sun rotates around the Earth, I'm sorry, but that really seems like it's on you. Personally I'd rather join the modern era and not do that, but to each their own.
BeetleB 9mo ago
And then you get married and have kids and wonder why you have trouble paying the bills despite having a household income in the top 5%. Then you discover that you really do need to know how much you are spending on sandwiches. I went through this a bunch of times. Always hoping for an obvious smoking gun expense I could just cut. It always was many little things adding up.
- StopDisinfo910 9mo ago
  If your income is in the top 5% and you struggle paying bills, it's nearly always an issue with to much of your money stuck in mandatory expense: you are over mortgaged, or have to many car loans, or pay too much for the kids schools. Budgeting can make that manageable by significantly lowering your living standard but small expenses are rarely the root cause.
  - jaapz 9mo ago
    I think you underestimate the amounts some people spend on things like clothing, coffee, going out to eat and other stuff you wouldn't even think about
    - StopDisinfo910 9mo ago
      Top 5% earner, we are talking at least 350000$ a year. That's a lot of coffee.
      - BeetleB 9mo ago
        No one in this thread is saying coffee is the reason. They're saying the little things add up. Coffee alone isn't a lot. Eating out alone isn't a lot. A cozy warm temperature in the house in a cold climate isn't a lot. Adding all of it together is too much. So you set the thermostat lower by 3 degrees. Pack lunches two to three days a week and cut down the coffee a certain percentage etc. Cutting any one thing out altogether will significantly reduce quality of life and won't get you there financially. Cutting back a bunch on each category will. As I said, back of the envelope calculations will get you whatever outcome you desire. Real actual spending data will tell you the real story. There isn't a substitute. 350K in Missouri will give you a vastly different lifestyle than 350K in Denver. If you have everything you want, no need to track!

alexnewman 9mo ago

Agreed this style of making money may have made sense when the world was more Sane but there’s no way to penny pinch yourself into a house in 2026

michaelrpeskin 9mo ago
25 years ago when my wife and I were poor grad students we had to do this. I tracked everything religiously and she cut coupons for the grocery store. We were generally positive about $100/month at best. Tracking it allowed us to not go negative. As soon as we got real jobs with a real income, we didn't waste time with that. Our philosophy now is to just make sure that we spend well under our means and not track. We don't penny-pinch, but we still keep some of the grad school "do I really need this?" mentality. Our normal spending is somewhere under 1/2 of our take-home (including mortgage), so we just don't worry about it and keep saving. It helps that we don't have fancy tastes. It's a nice stress free way of saving and we don't have to get neurotic about tracking every penny either.
- ghaff 9mo ago
  It probably worth at some level not totally losing track of various subscriptions or routine daily purchases. Won’t buy you a house but can be a few thousand a year.
  - michaelrpeskin 9mo ago
    One of the things that the tracking taught me was to be allergic to subscriptions. I only have a few where significantly more convenient because I know I'll use it. Outside of our phones (and the kids don't get phones), we have one music service for the family, I'll allow two video streaming services and if the kids want to add one, they have to pick one to cancel, and I have a coffee subscription because the owner lives down the street from me and it's fresher than I'd get in the grocery store. It's a good point about the routine daily purchases, I never thought of that. But I live semi-rural so I'm not out every day wandering around the city and picking up a snack or anything like that. I imagine that could add up.
    - ghaff 9mo ago
      That’s about where I am along with a couple bundles plus a few computer related subscripts like Backblaze, VPN, and Adobe related. To the other point, a lot of people have a more or less daily Starbucks or other breakfast related habit.

tonyedgecombe 9mo ago

Not that a sandwich will make much difference but you have to remember that employers like their staff to be indebted, it makes them compliant.

tossandthrow 9mo ago
It is not really binary. I hate budgeting and still save around half my salary. Though I do realize that this is a different game for some people, where some need it more than others.
- kassner 9mo ago
  You are the exception. Most people follow the “Parkinson’s Law” for money.

miroljub 9mo ago

Here's another enlightenment for you: Tracking expenses doesn't take more than 5-10 minutes per day, if you do it daily. With the correct workflow, it shouldn't take more than 30 minutes per month. There are even apps that would do that for you without any effort, though not so perfectly as fine tuned apps. And now, the enlightenment part: how is expense tracking preventing you from making more money than visiting hecker news, reddit, social media, listening to the radio, watching TV, reading the news, or a million other things? Do you really spend all your waking hours earning more money so tracking expenses for a few minutes would make you make less?

ajb 9mo ago
This begs the question though, of why individuals still need to do this like a 17th century clerk, when it costs their counterparties fractions of a man-second. Imagine if their was a law which said, every business that takes a credit card has to supply the consumer with the data in standard, machine-processable format (ie not pdf) via their credit account (IE, not making obtaining their email address a condition).
- fragmede 9mo ago
  Or you could parse PDFs and give them an email address. If you want to live like a 17th century clerk because of rules you've made up in your own head that you must follow like an equally outdated religion where the Sun rotates around the Earth, I'm sorry, but that really seems like it's on you. Personally I'd rather join the modern era and not do that, but to each their own.

BeetleB 9mo ago

And then you get married and have kids and wonder why you have trouble paying the bills despite having a household income in the top 5%. Then you discover that you really do need to know how much you are spending on sandwiches. I went through this a bunch of times. Always hoping for an obvious smoking gun expense I could just cut. It always was many little things adding up.

StopDisinfo910 9mo ago
If your income is in the top 5% and you struggle paying bills, it's nearly always an issue with to much of your money stuck in mandatory expense: you are over mortgaged, or have to many car loans, or pay too much for the kids schools. Budgeting can make that manageable by significantly lowering your living standard but small expenses are rarely the root cause.
- jaapz 9mo ago
  I think you underestimate the amounts some people spend on things like clothing, coffee, going out to eat and other stuff you wouldn't even think about
  - StopDisinfo910 9mo ago
    Top 5% earner, we are talking at least 350000$ a year. That's a lot of coffee.
    - BeetleB 9mo ago
      No one in this thread is saying coffee is the reason. They're saying the little things add up. Coffee alone isn't a lot. Eating out alone isn't a lot. A cozy warm temperature in the house in a cold climate isn't a lot. Adding all of it together is too much. So you set the thermostat lower by 3 degrees. Pack lunches two to three days a week and cut down the coffee a certain percentage etc. Cutting any one thing out altogether will significantly reduce quality of life and won't get you there financially. Cutting back a bunch on each category will. As I said, back of the envelope calculations will get you whatever outcome you desire. Real actual spending data will tell you the real story. There isn't a substitute. 350K in Missouri will give you a vastly different lifestyle than 350K in Denver. If you have everything you want, no need to track!