The last I checked up on this goal, I was attempting (futilely) to budget, and to balance my income and expenses each month. However, this was a total pain in the ass, so I fell way behind on doing it.

Well, today I forced myself to sit down and actually do some financial paperwork, simply starting from a blank spreadsheet. I did a Balance Sheet first, which is a snapshot of your accounts at this point in time. You add up all your assets (savings, retirement accounts), and compare that to your liabilities (credit cards, mortgage), which will give you your Net Worth. Luckily I am on the positive-side there.

Next, I did a cash flow statement, and that will show you which way you are trending. What is frightening is that, even though my accounts and spending feel like they are in order, this exercise proved beyond a doubt that I am spending more than I earn. However, I am really glad I did this now, cause I feel like I have the time to fix it.

While this was fairly tough, it really helped that I had the majority of my financial transactions recorded in Quicken, cause it allowed me to easily pull down different categories of spending. For instance, I can say “for this year so far, give me a report that tallies all my spending for Medical:Vision or Dining or Cell Phone.”