Two weeks ago, I wrote about something that was so very difficult to do. Specifically, it was to know the actual price of something if it was purchased under a membership program, one where rewards disguised the actual price. In fact, it’s so difficult, that I don’t believe that it would be worthwhile in my case, assuming that I could even do it.
This week, let’s turn to something that you can do with a plaintext accounting tool such as hledger. First, you can know the total price for a category of spending or what you spent at a particular vendor. That is, you may not know what the price of a gallon of milk was after you add in the yearly membership cost and allocate the correct portion to list price of the milk the discounts or cash back that apply to all your purchases but have to be prorated among your various purchases.
However, and this is the positive point, you do know the total for what you spent at X grocery store or for the expenses that you have categorized as groceries.
And of even greater importance is what you have spent in total. Compare this number against what you have earned in total, and this is key information to where you are financially. Simple, but important.