All the financial advice guides tell you to keep a spending diary, so as to have a visual record of your spending habits that you can later analyze and improve upon.

If I had done this the first time I racked up massive credit card debt — back in college —  I might have learned my lesson. I mean, my money was going to blown-glass balls, fine wood jewelry boxes, and kaleidoscopes from the handmade crafts store I was working at, in addition to ironic T-shirts from Urban Outfitters and Allston Beat, and hippie-dippie tops from Arden B. Talk about frivolity.

For those of you impatient with the archaic practice of writing things down, there's Tweet what you $pend. 

With this program, Twitter users can track expenses via their cell phone, and eventually download the information as a spreadsheet to be imported into another personal finance application. Nifty!

[via lifehacker]

Related: Quick Tip of the Day: Shrink Credit Card Debt