Absolutely! The only way to understand how to make ends meet is to keep track of the ends! In other words, there's no way to know what your debt load may look like down the road if you can't predict with at least some measure of confidence what you'll be spending.

I recommend grouping your expenses into categories and then every time you pay your bills, note the payment in the right category. After 2-3 months, you'll have a good idea of your total monthly expenses so you can project into the future intelligently. You'll also then have a built-in "alarm" in your head that will go off if you pay a bill that's wildly different from the pattern you tracked over 2-3 mos.

The most tricky part about being accurate with this, btw, is how to deal with your credit card expenses. You probably pay for a lot of stuff with your card(s). It also may be that for some items, one month you'll use your card and the next month you'll use a check or cash or an online payment. If that's right, then you can't make "credit card" one of your categories. Instead, you need to list the expenses from your card in the other categories you've created.

Sitting down and going through your expenses can be a real eye-opener. In The Six-Day Financial Makeover there is a painless 10 step “Expense X-Ray” process that walks the reader step-by-step how to get a handle on expenses.