A helpful way to figure out how your future will go is to figure out what you have done in the past. With this in mind, this time of year is a perfect time to take a financial end-of-year snapshot of what you did this year.
How do I do this? If you use Quicken or excel, you have the information at your fingertips, so you don’t have an excuse. Look at your categories and monthly spending and determine where you spent your money.
If you don’t have these tools, find your old bank and credit card statements (which you should be keeping, folks!), and start sifting through this information.
Make up an end-of-year snapshot report for yourself, and make sure you keep it. Read it over, figure out what you might be able to change and start formulating your plan (and write that down too). Keep all that so that next year, you can compare how well you did on your plan and reach your spending from this coming year and the year that just passed (another vital tool in your arsenal).
Don’t be afraid. Go ahead and do it, and you might even surprise yourself!
