October Wall Chart (with real numbers)

[iamdavidspersonaleconomy]

I have been meaning to post my real numbers to the board, so here it goes.

Some Label info:
Recovery: Addiction recovery meetings and other workshops and books
Circulation: Giving and tythe
Career: My student loan payment
Travel: Conventional travel, and well as all transportation (car, gas). I bought a plane ticket for a trip to Chicago this December and made trips to my hometown to visit my Mom in the hospital (she is home now).
Fun: Going out and eating out as well. Eating out was heavy this month as I spent time out of town visiting Mom.
Julie: My dog. Annual shots & 6 month batch of preventative meds
Amenities: Cell phone & internet
Retirement: Contributions to retirement accounts
Investment: Investment Earnings



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[fidgiegirl]

I love seeing numbers. Did you make your spreadsheet? Your categories are so clean! Ours seem so discrete. Like not just "shelter," but mortgage, property insurance, household items, maintenance items, renovation costs . . . we break it down so much - maybe to our detriment? On the other hand, having smaller categories allows us to identify overspending quickly, or to easily account for periodic spikes.

I never used to do the balancing, but should.

[SteveinMN]

Kelli, I find breaking down the categories helps me determine where the costs are. "Shelter" (to me) would be mortgage, interest, property taxes, utilities, maintenance, and home improvements. Mortgage and interest are fixed and I can't do much about property taxes, but it would be much harder to spot why the "Shelter" figure keeps going up unless I can pin down whether it's seasonal higher utility costs, a budgeted-for outlier (like a new appliance), or too much time spent "saving money" at Kohl's. It's a pain to collect info that specifically, but without tracking, there is no history. It gives me a much better and more-actionable picture of finances.

[EDIT]
That said, if providing that level of detail inhibits data collection to start with, then a smaller set of categories would be useful.

[lhamo]

Ooh -- that is purty! I'm jealous of your simple elegance.

My FI excel spreadsheet goes back to 2002, is close to 10mb at this point, and just kind of clunks along. I've got waaaaay too many tabs tracking different things -- daily expenses, monthly net worth summary daily networth figures, annual budget, RHW calculations, utility bill record (only way I can track use and cost easily), credit card reward records, and FI projection sheet. And that is probably only about 1/3 of the sheets! I often start up another way of looking at somethign and then abandon it. I'm loathe to give up a system I've used for so long, though. It is kind of cool to be able to answer down to the penny when DH asks what we payed for X or Y in 2006.

lhamo

[iamdavidspersonaleconomy]

I made the spreadsheet, myself, I am CPA and love spreadsheets! So I track each item by more detailed descriptions, then they are summarized for this chart. If I want to dig into a category, I can then see exactly what I spent or earned. My chart used to look like the one below, but I found that by having too many categories I never saw any big amounts that scared me into spending less. If everything was small, nothing was big. With big categories, I see the big picture and it has more of an impact on me. I also have a graph as instructed in the book.

The big spike in the chart is from selling my car one month, then buying another the next month.



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[Rosemary]

I also will think about using fewer, broader categories in my tracking. I really like the simplicity of your charts.

[catherine]

I love your spreadsheet, too! I'm not a numbers person per se, but I am a budget geek!

I think one way to get around the micro vs. macro details is to be able to collapse or expand those categories at will. I like to be able to fall back on some of the detail for analysis, but too many categories makes me crazy.

In fact I have just a few very broad categories. Collapsed, they are:

-Needs
-Wants
-Giving
-Taxes
-Saving

So, in the detail, I might have a "housing" line item under both Needs and Wants: Needs=mortgage, taxes, etc. and Wants=a new rug.

Thanks for sharing your spreadsheet, iam! I also like how you've been true to YMOL in terms of really using the budget to evaluate your fulfillment in each category.

[leslieann]

I am just impressed. I am impressed with the simple elegance and with the tracking. And the tithing! Your spending is focused on the things that are important to you...that impresses me too.

I have trouble keeping track of how much I spend on groceries, so I am just overall impressed. I like the fulfillment part too. I think about that nearly every time I open my wallet but systematically assessing and tracking are very good ideas.

[iamdavidspersonaleconomy]

I am just impressed. I am impressed with the simple elegance and with the tracking. And the tithing! Your spending is focused on the things that are important to you...that impresses me too.

I have trouble keeping track of how much I spend on groceries, so I am just overall impressed. I like the fulfillment part too. I think about that nearly every time I open my wallet but systematically assessing and tracking are very good ideas.

Thank you. From reading YMYL, I understood this is about spending my life energy (time) for what is important to me. This is different from other simple life, and personal finance concepts which tend to focus on absolute cost savings, "how low can you go." I get compulsive (ha, see recovery category) sometimes and try to spend as little as possible, but it doesn't make my life any better. The goal for me is to spend nothing on things that do not add to my life, which are not important. I think over time as I gain awareness from tracking, my spending will decrease.

[fidgiegirl]

Interesting how you have titled your chart "energy flow chart." So much more meaningful than "wall chart," and yet it never occurred to me that I could change the name of it.

I found that by having too many categories I never saw any big amounts that scared me into spending less

That's what is happening to me lately. We have it so disparate, and have a good hourly wage . . . doing leslieann's technique of keeping the 3 questions in mind every time I made a purchase used to work, but with our high RHW, no single purchase really feels like all that much of a burden. But add it up, and eeeeks!!