A reader suggested a discussion post for how to keep track of all your cards, accounts, spending, earn, etc. Feel free to discuss down below in the comments. You can also share spreadsheet templates or apps that you use.
I’ll go first 🙂 :
The way I’ve been rolling for the past many years:
- One spreadsheet which tracks every new account or card I sign up for. This has the name of the card/account, last 4 digits, date applied, date approved, bonus info, annual fee, account opened or closed (for sorting), date closed, and additional notes.
- Separate spreadsheet with live accounts and cards, along with their numbers. I also keep my loyalty accounts on this sheet. I start a brand new sheet for this every year; I delete the old accounts when I transfer over the info to a new sheet at the start of a new calendar year. I like the freshness of a new sheet instead of having an eternally-updated sheet.
- Separate spreadsheet with a list of my gift cards. I cross out the ones which were used/sold. This sheet gets refreshed each calendar year, and I transfer over any live gift cards to the new sheet.
- Separate spreadsheet with tons of other things I track: business revenues, home costs (gas/electric bills, etc), charity donations, business expenses, taxes paid, and more. I have various categories and sub-categories for each line on the sheet so that I can sort the sheet and find what I need. This sheet also gets refreshed each calendar year.
Back in the day I used to use Mint. When that died, I now just log into my main few banks multiple times each week; I don’t find it too difficult.
I was just going through some of my old spreadsheets from 2014-2015 and couldn’t help but laugh at how convoluted I was at tracking certain things.
Everyone will have differing tracking needs depending on what they are juggling. The above system is where I’ve landed for myself, and I’ll continue to tweak it as my tracking needs evolve.
