Free Car Expense Tracker — Simple, Calm, No Spreadsheets.

Why track car expenses at all?

The average car owner spends thousands of dollars a year on fuel, insurance, parts, and repairs — and almost none of it ends up in one place. Receipts live in glove compartments, dealer invoices vanish into email, and the big costs (insurance, registration, depreciation) feel invisible because they happen rarely.

A car expense tracker changes that. By logging every spend the moment it happens, you finally get to see the real cost of owning a car — month by month, category by category — without spreadsheets, without accounting jargon, and without ever needing to remember what you paid three months ago.

What to track

Not every dollar matters equally, but a good car log captures all of these:

• Fuel — every fill-up, with gallons or liters so you can also track MPG.
• Service — oil changes, tire rotations, brake jobs, fluid flushes.
• Repairs — anything from a check-engine fix to a new alternator.
• Insurance — premiums, renewals, deductibles paid out.
• Parts & accessories — tires, wipers, batteries, floor mats.
• Registration & taxes — annual fees that surprise you if you forget.

Together, these six categories cover >95% of what a typical car owner spends. Skip any of them and your "total cost" is fiction.

The spreadsheet problem

Most people start tracking car expenses in a Google Sheet. It works for a week. Then the columns drift, the categories get inconsistent, and by the third month nobody opens the sheet anymore. The data exists but it's dead — too tedious to update, too cluttered to read.

A dedicated app solves this with three small things: a fast input form (under 10 seconds per entry), consistent categories, and summaries that show you the picture without making you do the math. That's what Maintory was built for.

How Maintory tracks car expenses

Maintory is a free iOS app designed around one job: keeping your car's financial history clean, calm, and useful.

• One tap to log. Date, amount, category, mileage — under 10 seconds.
• Per-car timelines. Every expense lives in your car's story, sorted by date.
• Spend by week / month / quarter / year. Switch the period; the total updates instantly.
• Category breakdowns. See where your money actually goes — fuel is rarely the biggest line.
• Fuel economy tracking. Tag a fill-up as "full tank" and Maintory computes MPG between full fills.
• Export a PDF history. When it's time to sell the car, hand the buyer a polished record.

The free version tracks one car. Premium unlocks unlimited cars, PDF export, and photo attachments (great for receipts and service invoices).

What you'll learn after one year of tracking

People are almost always surprised by their own numbers. The two biggest surprises:

• Insurance and depreciation beat fuel. Even with gas prices high, the boring annual costs (insurance, registration, value lost) usually outweigh the pump.
• Repairs cluster. Cars don't break down evenly — there are quiet years and expensive years. Knowing your three-year average helps you budget instead of panic.

The point of tracking isn't to micro-manage every gallon. It's to know, finally, what your car costs you — so the next time you compare it against a new lease, a used upgrade, or just keeping what you have, you can decide with real numbers instead of vibes.

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