MAN! The last time I attempted to do this was back in February of 2007! Over 3 years ago! My goal with posting this is to keep myself more accountable about my spending habits by making them public, and to share the knowledge and insight I gain from doing so. The foundation of my money tracking system is from the book “Your Money or Your Life.” I plan on reading other books/blogs on finance and integrating the various systems, but this one book stands pretty strong on it’s own.
The goal of the monthly evaluations is to achieve “financial integrity” or more clearly getting your spending habits and your values to align. Charles Givens put it this way in his book Financial Self Defense:
When your actions are out of alignment with your values, you can experience fear, guilt, frustration and emotional imbalance. Fortunately, you can get rid of those negative, unwanted feelings. You can either:
- Change your actions to align with your values, or
- Change your values to align with your actions.
This statement is true with all things, especially your money. The way the evaluation works is by first tracking your spending habits and putting it in separate categories, then evaluating your spending at the end of each month using 3 questions. I’m missing a step because I’m suppose to figure out how much “life energy” I spent (in hours) on each category, but I can’t figure out that number because… All my money comes in from not working (right now anyway 
).
The Questions
The three questions you ask yourself about each category are:
1. Did I receive fulfillment, satisfaction and value in proportion to life energy spent?
- + = Totally I want to spent more
- - = Not really, I want to spend less
- 0 = Just right.
2. Is this expenditure of life energy in alignment with my values and life purpose?
- + = TOTALLY yes!
- - = No
- 0 = Fine
3. How might this expenditure change if I didn’t have to work for a living?
- - = You think it would decrease
- + = You think it would increase
- 0 = You think it would remain the same
That’s the explanation of the marking below, now I’ll give you my own personal breakdown of my spending last month.
Reflection on Last Month’s Spending
I just moved back to Milwaukee last month so my routine wasn’t very good (and I’m still working on it). I ended up going out to eat a lot and the grocery shopping I did kind of sucked (I’m off to a much better start this month). I also had a bunch of major and unusual things (getting a tooth pulled, standing up in a wedding). I also got a few items of clothing that I won’t need to get every month. Plus I bought a nook (eBook reader). That might have been a “feel good” purchase, but I’m not sure. I’ve been enjoying the shit out of it though!
The final comment I want to make is about my girlfriend category. I went a little willy-nilly with going out for food and going to movies, but I just wanted to see what the total amount would be at the end of the month (I have some saving to experiment with). Looking back on it I don’t think I got a lot of satisfaction out of those times out. In comparison there’s a category under girlfriend marked “other” (I’ll work on making better categories). That $27 was on going to a strip joint. At the time, I felt like I spent a bunch of money, but compared to how much fun we had and how much was spent on going out for “so-so” food, I would have rather done that 2 or 3 more times! (Or something like it). That’s why it got all plus.
Oh, a final note is fast food getting all minuses. I plan on doing a LOT better in that department this month.
Expenses In July
07/01/2010 - 07/31/2010
| Account | 07/01/2010 - 07/31/2010 |
|---|---|
| EXPENSES | |
| Alcohol | |
| ++- Out | $ 36.00 |
| Alcohol - TOTAL | $ 36.00 |
| Bills | |
| 000 Phone | $ 2.95 |
| 000 Rent | $ 240.00 |
| 000 Bills-Other | $ 105.40 |
| Bills - TOTAL | $ 348.35 |
| ++0 Business | $ 88.12 |
| -+0 Education | $ 29.95 |
| Food | |
| 0-0 Groceries | $ 105.86 |
| — Out | $ 101.13 |
| 000 Snacks | $ 7.17 |
| Food-Other | $ 2.29 |
| Food - TOTAL | $ 216.45 |
| Girlfriend | |
| -+- Food Out | $ 136.35 |
| -+- Movies | $ 51.51 |
| +++ Girlfriend-Other | $ 27.10 |
| Girlfriend - TOTAL | $ 214.96 |
| Healthcare | |
| 000 Dental | $ 149.87 |
| 000 Prescriptions | $ 4.69 |
| Healthcare - TOTAL | $ 154.56 |
| 000 Miscellaneous | $ 89.41 |
| Personal | |
| 0+- Books/Magazines | $ 204.77 |
| 000 Clothing | $ 25.17 |
| 0+0 Sporting Goods | $ 59.69 |
| Personal - TOTAL | $ 289.63 |
| 00- Tipping | $ 11.00 |
| Transportation | |
| 000 Bus Fair | $ 31.00 |
| Transportation - TOTAL | $ 31.00 |
| EXPENSES - TOTAL | $ 1,510.04 |
This is very interesting. I think using this will help me when I start to budget and move get ready to move into my own place. Definitely keep this up, having exactly what you spent and how you felt about it right in front of you will help you manage your money better I’m sure. I’ll probably look into buying the book too. Very good post.
Just realized you were posting here. Glad to see you’re back to Your Money or Your Life. Do you remember where you first acquired that book? I believe I had it 20 or more years ago, but it took me until two years ago to actually start doing it. I’ve done it long enough now I should get better at analyzing my expenses.
Analyzing is a KEY part of the process. He even mentions in the book that a lot of people stop at the tracking part. Go reread the analyzing part and be sure to do that! I’ll be updating this blog weekly after I’m done with this contest.
Pingback: Being Sued By Kohn Law/Capital One | miltownkid.com