How do you keep your household budget? Paper? Software? App?

Um, yes, but surely every expense is recorded. Otherwise, it doesn't make any sense, does it? How do you distinguish between expenses that go into the household book and those that are left out? Where do the small items add up?

I basically agree with you. But: When we started keeping a household book long before building the house, I really broke down every small item, down to the stamp and the bread roll, to be able to see exactly where the money was going. By now, it is mainly about having an overview of the monthly income and expenses, i.e. I summarize some costs. At the beginning, for example, I also looked through every receipt and itemized individually what were groceries, hygiene articles, baby items (diapers, etc.), but now this is summarized under the item groceries/hygiene. Similarly, there is now the item cash, i.e. at the beginning of the month a certain amount is withdrawn from the account, which is then used for things like bread rolls, daycare meal money, and smaller purchases. How much of that is actually spent on bread rolls and what portion is for something else is no longer quite as important; what matters is the overview. There is also no longer the time and inclination to itemize every article individually.

Um, yes, but of course every expense is recorded. Otherwise it doesn't make any sense, right? How do you differentiate between expenses that go into the household book and those that are left out? Where do the small items add up?

Anyway ... treadmill and ergometer are obviously nonsense; real sport takes place outside .

You don't leave anything out - you group items together, see above!

I can bring you our exercise bike, then I don't have to use it

Sounds interesting - I would gladly accept it. The only thing speaking against it: If I set it up in the living room in front of the TV, my two little kid rascals have a new climbing frame with "ouch" danger. If I set it up somewhere else (e.g., office), we end up at the point "You spend too little time with me."

Anyway ... treadmills and exercise bikes are nonsense; real sports take place outdoors.

Now, to speak from reality: Get up at 5:00 a.m., start walking to work by 5:40 at the latest – back around 7:40 p.m. with a bear-sized hunger. At that time, you hardly feel like doing sports directly. Besides, the little ones need to be put to bed including the obligatory story and cuddling. Then cook dinner (the only hot meal of the day). After dinner, it's at least 9:00 p.m. Then I really have no desire to do sports outside. On weekends, the time is for the kids and the household, which has to be brought back into shape together after a week.

The doctor nags me every time that I should do sports again. But when he hears my daily routine, all he says is: Then you have to change your daily routine. – Exactly: my employer will immediately agree to that. I have missed sports for ages myself, as I used to train up to 6 times a week. Back then I still had a V-shaped back – today you would rather call the figure a Christmas tree.

Enough whining. Either you have a job (unfortunately with a longer commute) that allows you to earn enough money to build your own home. Or you have a job where you can't make big leaps but that allows you hobbies.

Um, yes, but surely every expense is recorded. Otherwise, it makes no sense, right? How do you distinguish between expenses that go into the household book and those that are left out? Where do the small items add up?

suggested that, for example, items like rolls, bread, etc. can be grouped together under baker or sausage and meat under butcher. However, this fails when such things are bought, for example, in a supermarket, where each individual item is listed on the receipt. In this case, the position "Shopping at Market XY" would be too broadly recorded for me, and splitting into categories like groceries, cleaning products, drugstore items, etc. with manual "extracting and summing up" is, in my opinion, too laborious again.

: no, that’s not what I mean. When you buy groceries, they are groceries. Extra luxury for the weekend is then the bakery... Ok, I admit: if I spend 30 € every week on meat and sausage in a package on the weekend, I would make an item for that, but not for the cold cuts during the week. If I occasionally buy a bottle of cola, it belongs to the groceries, if I buy 2 crates of it every week, it belongs to the drinks. By the way, I have differentiated between groceries and cosmetics, because I often spend nearly 50 € at a larger drugstore chain - I want and need to know that. It’s also about analyzing the numbers later and wanting to see where you spend too much. That’s why I recommend a ledger book, which you fill out after shopping, because then you still have an overview and can split the supermarket receipt into thirds or something like that. By the way, , you don’t write down a single cent, you round up.

those are now the typical "I don't have time" excuses. I always wonder where others find the time. I think it’s about priorities that you set for yourself.

And regarding the quote: "you don’t have time for me" is a typical sentence that either comes from a woman who learned this sentence from her mom (complaining without reason) or this sentence is just your own interpretation and sprung from your imagination. Men often hear something else...