My Finance Tracking System

After thinking about how I would track things, talking with my mother in-law and trying out a few finance tracking program demos, I decided that a semi-manual approach was the best for me.

First of all, I have 12 separate envelope folders marked January through December. I have a monthly budget worked out on spreadsheet, and I print one out and glue it to the front of each envelope.

The budget form has the projected budget and space to the right to list the actual expenses. As bills come in, I pay them, mark their date and payment amount on the spreadsheet and file the receipt in the folder.

At the end of the month I access my credit card and bank statements online, print print them and pull other assorted items out of them putting them down in the expense side of the paper. I then file those statements in the folder.

When the month is over I will take the envelope to the computer and input my expenses into my spreadsheet and this way I will have everything calculated and ready for trend analysis and an end of the year roll-up.

The various budget or money tracking software I tried were more than a bit cumbersome to use, and they sort of required me to enter the transactions into the computer as they occurred. (otherwise they it would be very hard to do it later)

This way, I get to write out checks while I eat at night, take simple notes on the front page summary and enter them into the spreadsheet all at once...when I have the time. The hand-written page still gives me a sort of "snapshot" of my activity during the month as I go along....so there is no worry about losing sight of my spending.

I have only done this for a month...and only a couple of weeks in reality. I like it so far...and everything will be in one place at years end.

So far...so good.

Interesting site with plenty of useful tools

Just a quick post to tell you about a site http://moneychimp.com that has quite a number of great calculator and tools on it to help people make their money and investment decisions.

For those of you who have an interest in Economics, they have a page that describes some of the economic indicators and when they are posted. This page also links you to the official government website that discusses that particular statistic.

Here is a page they put together to help people understand the value of a particular stock.

How about a page the describes Index Funds and some of the plusses and minuses in your using them.

The list of tools goes on and on.... (Roth IRA info, Capital Gains Calculators, Inflation Calculators, etc....)

Check it out.

Where does your salary rank you against everyone else?

Kiplinger.com has a very simple one line calculator that simply asks you to input your salary, and it quickly calculates what percentile your pay is in, and gives you some quick facts about how much tax people in that percentile pay.

I was a bit surprised at how high my pay was.....and you might be as well.

I suggest you try it out because if you happen to be above the 50% mark, you have to worry when someone running for office says they want to "tax" the fat cats.....they might be aiming squarely at you!

Check it out at: http://www.kiplinger.com/tools/income_rank/index.php