[freddie_mercury]

I agree. I've also been tracking my family's personal finances for about that long.

You have to ask yourself what you're going to do with the data. Don't just collect data for data's sake.

The most granular I've ever needed is things like: "wow, I've spent way too much on hobbies in the past 3 months" or "we've spent way too much eating out this month" or "the kid's sports are getting out of hand". Or even "we can afford to spend a lot more on vacations over the rest of the year".

Those are all very top level categories. I can't imagine a world where I'd ever make a lifestyle change based on how I spend on meat over the past six months.

And if you're not actually making a change then the data is just data hoarding.

[cromka]

Yup. Although even if you’re not making any changes based on your habits, it’s still helpful to track money spent to know where your money actually is, especially the liabilities. Except you don’t even need to track expenses at all, outside of the generic “Expenses” category.