Tracking recurring expenses and subscriptions
Most of what leaves a bank account each month was decided once and then forgotten: the rent, the utilities, the phone plan, the streaming services, the software. Writing each one down once, with how often it repeats, shows the whole year before it happens.
Write each expense down once
A recurring expense needs four things: what it is, what it costs, how often it repeats and when it starts. From those, every payment in the year can be worked out — twelve for a monthly bill, fifty-two for a weekly one, one for a yearly renewal. If it stops, add the date of the last payment and the rest of the year drops out.
Group them by what they are for, not by who is paid: housing, utilities, internet and phone, insurance, streaming, memberships, software, AI tools, web and domains, office, home and lawn services, groceries, dining, equipment, fitness, transport. The groups are what make a year of payments readable.
Put everything on the same footing
A yearly renewal and a weekly shop cannot be compared until they are turned into the same unit. A month is the natural one, but a month is not four weeks:
| Expense | How often | Amount | A month | A year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Groceries | Weekly | $160.00 | $693.33 | $8,320.00 |
| Lawn service | Every 2 weeks | $60.00 | $130.00 | $1,560.00 |
| Car insurance | Every 6 months | $720.00 | $120.00 | $1,440.00 |
| Shopping membership | Yearly | $139.00 | $11.58 | $139.00 |
A weekly expense is paid 52 times a year, so it costs 52 ÷ 12 = 4.33 times its amount a month, not 4. Counting four weeks a month quietly leaves out four payments a year — for $160 of groceries, $640. Something paid every two weeks lands three times in two months of most years, which is why those months look expensive when nothing has changed.
Variable bills: record the usual amount, then correct it
Electricity and water are recurring, but the amount moves with the season. Enter the usual bill, then change the months that differ when the bill arrives. A $120 electricity bill that was $168 in July and $181 in August adds $109 to the year; kept as a plain $120, the plan would be wrong by exactly that much. A skipped month — a paused membership, a service that did not come — is the same kind of correction.
Spent so far, and still to come
Once every payment in the year is known, today splits it in two: what has already gone out and what is still due. The second half is the useful one. It is the rest of the year's commitments before anything new is bought, and the next thirty days of it is the money that needs to be in the account soon.
Personal and business
If you run a business or freelance, mark each expense as personal or business when you enter it, not at the end of the year. The two totals separate cleanly, and an export of just the business side is a starting list for whoever does your books. Whether an expense is deductible, and how much of it, depends on your country and circumstances; keep the receipts, and ask a tax professional.
Look for what nobody decided this year
- Subscriptions you no longer use. The recurring list, costliest first by the year, is the place to find them.
- Overlaps. Two services doing one job — two video streaming plans, two cloud storage plans, two AI tools.
- Monthly plans you would keep all year. Many services offer a yearly price; compare it with twelve monthly payments on your own plan before switching.
- Renewals that arrive at once. The month chart shows where yearly and six-monthly payments pile up.
One calendar year at a time
A year is the unit that bills, budgets and tax returns share. At the end of it, keep a copy — a backup file and a spreadsheet or PDF — then start the next year with the recurring expenses that are still running. One-time purchases and the corrections to variable bills belong to the year they happened, so they stay in the old year's copy.
Where the list is kept
A list of every bill says a lot about a household: where you live, who you bank with, what you pay for. The Expense Tracker keeps it in your browser on your own device and never uploads it. That also means clearing browser data, or using another device, starts empty — so download a backup now and then, and keep backups and exports somewhere private.