Amanda Barroso

Some people are going to want, though, within those categories, different levels of specificity.

So itemizing could mean the difference between blowing through your grocery budget or spreading costs out more accurately to reflect your spending.

So, you know, take Costco, for example.

I might have $125 worth of groceries, but then I might have batteries and light bulbs and toilet paper.

And those things in my budget might be under household supplies.

So if I don't take the time to itemize that, well, dang, I've blown through two weeks of my grocery budget.

And that's not actually true.

That's not even accurate to my spending.

So I think part of this is kind of looking inward and saying, what kind of specificity do I need to make my budget work and to accurately reflect how I'm spending my money every month?

We're humans.

We need some pleasure in life.

I'm glad you asked me this question because I talk a lot about budgeting at NerdWallet.

Like this is my whole job.

And obviously we never really talk about the work that goes into it.

Like budgeting takes time and intention.

It's work actually to manage a budget.

And we live in a society that tries to make things as frictionless as possible.

But maybe understanding our spending requires like just more friction.

Maybe having to itemize your receipts, which probably literally takes, how long do you think, five minutes or less?

Okay, but having to itemize those receipts and upload them to an app or whatever, I don't know.