The Incredible Cell Phone Expense Tracker
It’s easy to fall behind on your budget. Little things like a cup of coffee or an ice cream can instantly throw off your expense calculations, and reconciling it can be a difficult, time-consuming task, sometimes so frustrating that you give up on your budget entirely.
Well, we here at the Student Loan Network and the Financial Aid Podcast may have developed *the* solution to your problem if you have a cell phone (mobile phone for our international audience). It’s an elegant solution that once implemented is so easy to manage that you’ll wonder how you did without it for so long. Here’s how:
Step 1. Set up a GMail account if you don’t have one. If you do, create a new label called Personal Finance. Once that’s created, set up a filter on your GMail to label any message from K7.net with the Personal Finance label.
Step 2. Visit K7 and sign up for a free voicemail box. Make sure you select to have messages emailed to you.
http://www.k7.net
(disclosure: we receive absolutely nothing for mentioning them)
Step 3. Program this free number into your cell phone. Ideally, use a space or the letter A in front of the name on your phone so that it’s always at the top of your list, like this:
-Phone Book-
A Expense Tracker
John Smith
Tom Smith
Terry Smith etc.
Step 4. Optionally, add the number to your speed dial.
Step 5. When you’re out and about, and you spend some money, pull out your phone and dial your expense tracker, and leave yourself a voice message, like “Spent $20 on dinner at the Thai restaurant August 12, 2006″.
Step 6. Your voice mail message will be emailed to your GMail account for you.
Step 7. When you’re ready to sit down and work on your budget, go to your GMail account and click on the Personal Finance label. This will bring up all of your voice mail messages. Download them to your computer and listen to them in order as you do your budget.
Step 8. As a bonus, load them onto your iPod or media player like WinAmp, and listen to them one after another as you do your budget.
That’s the instant cell phone expense tracker! It’s so easy, so fast, and you don’t have to carry around five pounds of gear just to manage your expenses. Sit down with your one page budget each week and get your personal finances back in order! Be sure to subscribe to the Financial Aid Podcast to listen for more great tips and financial hacks every day!
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This is a great method, but if you have a smart phone, you can just get an app to do this for you.
ProOnGo Expense lets you take a picture of your receipt with your phone’s camera, then automatically extracts the data into an expense report. This can save the time with the pen and pad listening to your old voice mails.
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I have tried the and I cant listen to the messages it keep bumping me into the Rhapsody play list – any suggestions?
This really sounds like just what I need. Thanks for the information.
Just wanted to say I’m enjoying it!
[...] The Incredible Cell Phone Expense Tracker If I go back to a situation where I want to track my cash expenditures (and not just debit/checking), this would be a good (and very convenient!) method by which to keep track of those. (tags: cool useful reference) [...]
[...] Basically, using K7.net’s free voicemail box (which emails you new messages) and a Gmail account, each time you spend money, leave yourself a voicemail saying something like “57 bucks at Fry’s for headphones.” Set up Gmail to shuttle any messages from K7 to a “personal finance” label. Back at home, use all the messages filed under that label to tally up your expenses. This method requires a lot of listening to voicemails to self, but it is easy instant capture all to one place. Thanks, Christopher! — Gina Trapani The Incredible Cell Phone Expense Tracker [Financial Aid Podcast] [...]
This is true – but for some folks who have only basic service without text messaging and such, it’s handy. Also, by loading up the messages in your iPod, you can play them back as a stream when you do your one page budget.
Christopher S. Penn
Daily financial aid internet radio on demand, no iPod required
http://www.FinancialAidPodcast.com
Got iTunes? http://www.FinancialAidPodcast.com/subscribe/
Good idea! Another suggestion would be to send a SMS text message with the expense to your email address.
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