Do you keep personal accounts?

Thats nice. I blow waaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyy too much money to do this.

 

I tried keeping such records, but quite soon I started dropping things etc and it all fell to pieces. Seems absolutely fine to me and definitely a good way of keeping track of what you spend your money on and how to adjust your spendings. +1

 

I do. I like to know where my money goes. It also helps to spot possible problems before they get out of hand. A neighbor had one of his gas cards stolen out of his home by his sons friend. He just pays the bill, never looks at it and didn't notice the extra $50-$100 a month till almost a year had gone by.

The downside is that it takes the mystery out of life's hard realities. Every month, there it is in black and white, the cause and effect of why I'm gaining weight. :-( LOL

 

Youre not the only one. I track just about every normal monthly occurence in my budget. I use to be really good and use MS Money which I thought worked well, but now I just use my own excel spreadsheet that I understand.

I started this because I was wondering where in the world all my $$ went when I should of had so much extra to save, spend or do whatever I needed to. I also set little goals for myself for other accounts that I do have which helps keep me in line.

Be happy you take care of this, I know alot of my friends both men and women that could have SOOOO much more if they took just a bit of time to monitor this stuff.

 

Doesn't software like Quicken perform all of this automatically?

 

I tried it, but I'm horrible at keeping track of what I spend, now I just try to make sure that I don't spend more than what my account says I have in it.

 

Ummmm... this is Ferrarichat - we're all money obsessed freaks!

Actually, I did this for many years, and it is a great way to identify and track bad spending habits. Then, you just come to terms with your bad habits, and finally you learn to embrace them.

Once you get married, you'll find tracking your spending redundant!

 

I only started doing this...well, I should say my wife started doing this when we got married. So we know which paycheck per week to devote to what, etc. I'm the worse about the whole thing, I tend to be a "sucker" for some charities or for the local fund raisers. Then I saw how much I was throwing out a month..woops..We just like to see where the money goes as well. My wife uses the MS MOney.

 

I keep track of my money. Its really easy because you can manage it online anytime so you don't have to calculate how much money you have. They do it for you which saves me a lot of time.

 

i was for a while... on and off i do it, and when i do i do it to the cent. but this last spurt which lasted about 6 months i had all these great graphs and stuff giving me multiple views of things, and it depressed the crap out of me!

i really hated looking at it projecting my exact finances 6-12 months into the future, just felt limiting somehow.

 

i use quicken, it's a lifesaver. i usually save all of my receipts and do all of my finances on sundays. i need to figure out a good way to track all of my investments, other than going to each individual website. any ideas?

 

I use Quicken as well. I started using it when I was 14, tracking my allowance.

Matt

 

that's exactly when i started as well. my belief is, and this is coming from a business family background, is that if you don't start financial planning and tracking early, you're going to be up a creek without a paddle when you get older. i plan on teaching my kids this as well.

 

Nothing weird about it. Now the guy who kept his money in his wallet all perfectly organized and was all obsessed with it-- that was weird.

Tracking how you spend your money is just common sense.