One of the things I’ve been doing over the last few months instead of blogging is staring at my financial profile on Wesabe. Although the staring doesn’t change the numbers (sadly), it does strengthen my resolve to take action to change them. 2009 was an expensive year for me, what with all the travel and giving money to my mother (whose ongoing unemployment saga gives me a headache). But at the same time I laid a foundation for getting on top of my debt.
An online money management tool like Wesabe works for me because I’m a geek and I love the tagging and bar graphs and pie charts and the novelty never wears off, unlike my brief flirtation with a paper budget book.
Once I started tracking my spending on Wesabe, I set up a simple budget spreadsheet breaking down my fixed and variable monthly expenses that I update throughout the month as money leaves my bank account. That way I can see how much money I really have left until pay day, rather than looking at my balance and ignoring the fact that various bill payments have yet to come out. I also downloaded a credit card snowball calculator spreadsheet to keep me motivated to hit my targets for getting the balances down each month.
Seeing my current account, credit card, and savings balances totalled up was a great motivator, and not only to deal with my debt. My small emergency fund had been sitting in a regular savings account, which had slashed its interest rate to practically zero. But having taken control of my finances, I moved it to an ISA with a better rate (if there is such a thing in these times of historic lows). The transfer took less than 5 minutes and the reward is there each month when I receive pounds rather than pennies in interest.
So one of my goals for 2010 is to continue what I started in 2009. It’s a real challenge this month, with the sales beckoning to treat myself. But the thing with treating yourself again and again is that at some point you have to pay for it. That time is now.
Tags: finances
