Fast Track Your Spending Habits Using Google Apps!

Getting money is like digging with a needle; spending it is like water soaking into sand. – Japanese Proverb
I couldn’t agree more with the above stated proverb. The essential factor to save money is to know what you’re spending it on. If you know how to keep track of every buck spent, you can uncover precisely where your money is going and act accordingly.

Image Credit: http://www.frankie.bz/blog/
Now, keeping track of spending money ought not to be a difficult thing. You might assume that you’ll be required to start getting receipt for each and every purchase / or to pen it all as you make them right through the month. Although this does work to an extent, and is well suggested for some people (say, technically challenged), I believe that we are of an epoch that will not put up with that trouble. Correct? Instead of this conventional, manual tracking, in this post, I recommend you a swift and pretty easy way to track your money spending habits Online, using couple of kick-ass Google apps – Gmail and Google Docs. Let’s delve deeper!
Note: If you use Gmail and are familiar with Google Docs already, this setup will be a walk in the park. If you’re not, then it may take some time on your part but should work nonetheless. Don’t worry! I’ll guide you through step-by-step walk-through with screenshots.
Setup outline: You’ll be going to create a Google Docs spreadsheet with money spending transaction entry form. Then you’ll access it from your Gmail account whenever you make a purchase / spend money and post the transaction to track your spending habits in the spreadsheet.
1. Create a Gmail Account (or) a Google Account (if not already!) – You can use this login details for Google Docs too.

2. Login to your Google Docs Account. Create a new Spreadsheet.

3. Name ‘Unnamed spreadsheet’ as you wish (or) appropriately and click ‘OK’ to save. It’ll be automatically saved every time you make changes hereafter.

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4. Now, you have to create a form that you’ll utilize later to enter your transaction details to this spreadsheet. In toolbar, Click on ‘Form’ > ‘Create a Form’.

5. Good! Next, let’s add few questions in this form (important details) like – Date of Purchase, Product Purchased, Amount Paid, Payment Method, Spending Category and Description if needed. You can add as many questions as you see fit (e.g. Why the hell did I buy that? ) But please KISS (Keep It Short and Simple)!
For every question, you have to give it a title, help text (not mandatory) and question type (choices: Text, Paragraph Text, Multiple choice, Checkboxes, Choose from a list, Scale, Grid). Let’s add our first question ‘Date of Purchase’ in the form:

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If the question is mandatory, you have to put a tick besides ‘Make this a required question’ box and click ‘Done’.
Similarly, you have to add other questions as well! (See, the ‘Add item’ at the top of the form editor? You’ve to select the ‘question type’ and you will be presented with the Form field editor as in above picture.)
I added other 5 questions too (types in brackets) – Product Purchased (Text), Amount Paid (Text), Payment Method (Checkboxes), Spending Category (Choose from a list) and Description (Paragraph text). Once you done it all, just click ‘Save’ on the form’s upper right corner. Well, you can spice up your form with theme too! Now, here’s a preview of my saved form (in web interface):

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On Page:2 > Fun part! Syncing your Gmail account with Google Docs!