“I've been a loyal reader ever since a Canadian friend told me about Money Diaries last year, though I'll admit that sometimes I'm only there to read the comments,” says Sofia, who initially came up with the idea for the exercise. While she’s never followed a budget before, she wanted to start keeping track of her expenses due to her upcoming wedding. Sofia sent out a request on Twitter to gauge interest, and found herself a group that was interested to write Money Diaries together for longer than the usual week-long duration (they came to the decision that one week wasn’t enough to accurately capture a person’s long-term spending habits).