Savings Worksheet – Boot Camp Episode #4

What better way to hold yourself accountable and motivate you so save, than tracking your savings?  Last year I created an Excel worksheet that I used to track our monthly savings at the 5 major stores I shop at.  You might have noticed on the left side of this page, I have been updating our savings throughout the year.  I used this worksheet to supply those numbers.  Here are the results for 2009:

Saved:  $5,752.01 or 48.4% (Savings based on sales, clearance and coupon shopping)

At the bottom of this post I have shared out a blank worksheet for you to copy and use if you wish.  I am not an excel expert so if anyone tweeks this and wants to share the tips, please leave a comment.  I’m always looking to simplify my process!  Let me give you a quick tour of the worksheet.

There are 7 separate tabs.  The first one is a Totals page.  The rest are specific stores.  I have them set up to track the following stores:

• Publix
• CVS
• Walgreens
• Target
• Walmart
• Miscellaneous (Combination of stores I shopped at like Home Depot and JoAnn Fabrics)

You can relabel them for the stores you use frequently.  You will not have to enter any information on the Totals Page, it will automatically fill in when the store tabs are updated.  The only information you will need to enter is the date, the OOP and Savings on the store tabs that are highlighted in green.

It will total the months for you and autofill the Totals Page.  In the comments section I list key items from that particular shopping trip.  Sometimes it’s nice seeing how long it had been since I bought coffee creamer!  On the miscellaneous page, I list the store and what I bought.

Several things I learned from tracking our savings this way.  Publix was easy to enter because the receipt is easy to read and very straight forward.  Target was difficult.  The receipt shows savings, but it’s usually only coupon savings.  It does not include clearance savings for instance.  I learned in the first 2 months that I didn’t save very much money at Walmart!  So I started avoiding that store altogether.  It’s also a bit of a drive for me so it was easy to eliminate.  I realized I was bad at picking up ‘impulse items’ at Walmart.

Savings 2010 Worksheet – This is an excel document.  Feel free to save a copy and make any changes that you want.  Please let me know if you have any questions.  I’ll be posting my monthly savings and I’d love to hear yours!  Let’s do a little bragging.  :)