Do any of you use and recommend an app for tracking receipts. Mainly I’m wanting to track what we spend on food at the grocery store, Sam’s Club, Walmart, etc. and what we spend eating out. I’ve been trying to do this on a spread sheet on the tablet but I know there has to be a better way.
Maybe I’m hoping for too much but ideally, say on any given month, I’d like to know:
- What we spent on groceries
- Enter what I actually used for cooking (vs. what went into storage)
- Enter how many meals we ate at home
- Enter what we spent on each meal out
- Enter how many times we ate out
Then, at the end of the month I should be able to see what we spent per meal eating at home and what we spent per meal eating out.
Yes, I can enter all this manually but I’m betting there’s an app that will do it.
As far as the food I cook or the food I put in storage, I may have to enter that into separate categories. Even an app may not be able to do that but if you have any recommendations, I’d love to hear them.
Thanks!
Sibyl says
Judy I don’t know just how apps work, but don’t you still have to input all the details? Why not just do your handy dandy spreadsheets. I know you are the queen of those. I would think you would still have to input what you purchased, then what you used for this recipe and that. Also what you put in storage vs used to cook with currently. Just an observation not sure others have a better idea on this or not.
judy.blog@gmail.com says
Mainly because I keep my spreadsheets on my tablet where I have a larger view of what I’m doing and I sometimes go days or weeks without getting on the tablet. I always have my phone with me and I’d like to be able to scan the receipt in but I don’t know if that’s possible. Apps can do a lot of things these days and I wash hoping there would be something advanced enough that I didn’t have to enter everything.
I do have one recipe app where I do enter the groceries I have on hand, then I can just check off the ones I’ve used and it will add those to my grocery list or just take them out of inventory and they’re gone. I don’t have to manually do much after they’re entered the first time.
SusanB says
Mint is a web-based financial tracking application that has apps for both Android and iOS. It’s free. I do not use it, preferring to keep my info on my laptop, but it has been mentioned / recommended on several of the personal finance blogs I follow. Mint is currently owned by Intuit (the TurboTax people). Navigate to “mint.com” and it will redirect to the Intuit page for Mint. Mint likes to connect to your various financial accounts (bank, credit, etc.) and download the transactions, but I don’t know if that is required.
SusanB says
I should have read your request more closely. Sorry. Try searching your app store for “track food storage”. You may find something that will do part of what you want. “Track spending” should return budget/finance apps.
Elle says
I think the categories you want to track will require calculating and entering your own data points other than restaurant receipts that will be single entry. May as well do a spreadsheet?
Ruth C says
I was interested, so I googled it and there is at least one article out there that compares different apps that scan your receipts and put them in a spreadsheet for you. Most of them appear to cost at least something but there was one free one. I haven’t used one but it’s nice to know this can be done more easily these days.
judy.blog@gmail.com says
I’ve been looking at them but I was hoping to find one that tracked what I buy and the cost so I could go back and compare what I’m paying for those same things six months later, or look to see what I paid for items and then calculate what a recipe costs to make. So far, I haven’t found one that will do that.
I thought maybe Walmart had something – I could scan my receipt and then go back and see how much everything I bought at Walmart cost 4 months ago. I can go back and see everything I bought if I was signed into my Walmart Plus account but I have to go through each receipt date by date. I can’t type in “tomato sauce” and see the price and date for each time I bought tomato sauce.
Does that make sense . . what I’m looking for?