Are You Tracking Your Finances?

Hello Friends,

Is budgeting, tracking your spending and pouring over your investments for hours really needed? The simple answer is, no. But, is that the smartest choice? If you want a hands-off approach to your finances that is fine, but just realize that you could (and likely are) missing out on a lot of potential growth and higher returns.

I’m not sure who said the following, “what gets measured, grows” but I couldn’t agree with it more. There is something so important about seeing progress. It helps keep you motivated and in tune with whatever it is you’re tracking be it your weight or your finances. Not only does tracking something help you see the progress you’re making, it also helps to keep it at the forefront of your mind. Once you get in the habit of tracking your finances and spending, it starts to hurt every time you see your cash balance go down or your credit card balance go up. This starts to become a powerful emotion in combating mindless spending.

A few methods that I personally use to track my finances are custom spreadsheets, Personal Capital, and Mint.

Let’s dive a bit deeper:

• Spreadsheets – This doesn’t have to be fancy. An easy way to get started with this is to open up Excel and search “budget” in its template section and there you go! Or I’ve linked a simple monthly budget you can start using right here Simple monthly budget. – This is the monthly budget I mainly use.
• Personal Capital – is a tool I can’t recommend enough! There is also a great built-in feature that will analyze your investment accounts and let you know your expense ratio.
• Mint – which I’ve only recently started using. It is very similar to Personal Capital, but in addition, it has a pretty robust budgeting tool built in.

When it comes to tracking your finances, there certainly is no one right answer. I just wanted to pose the question, offer a few solutions, and make sure you’re staying cognizant of where your hard earned money is going.

I’d be curious to know, how do you track your finances?

All the best!

Disclaimer: The above references an opinion and is for information purposes only.  It is not intended to be financial or investment advice. Please seek a professional advisor for personal financial advice.