Thought for today:

Many of us struggle to find a simple tool to help us track our spending and earning.  Some wind up in a kind of paralysis trying to track numbers, getting caught up in piles of ‘late entry’ stacks of overwhelming receipts.

For many people, Mint* is a less emotionally charged yet highly efficient way to manage their numbers.

What it is: Mint.com(*) is the simplest method of tracking your numbers. It is a one stop shop for all DA numbers. And it is free. And it alerts you when you are over the planned amount. You enter a dollar amount and a payee and assign it to one of the out of the box categories or a custom category you create. If you enter your savings and loan accounts you can also calculate your net worth.

What is required: The only requirement for using Mint is that you have at least one online bank account and be willing to enter your username and password into Mint. (For more about security see the mint.com website.)

Some of what you get:
1) a report of your spending comparing plan vs. actual. You can drill into each category. Categories in red are over plan, green is at plan, yellow is under plan.
2) if you use it on a smart phone: GPS recognition of your payee as you enter it. For example, the system learns that when you create a transaction in a church basement you usually are donating to DA. You don’t have to enter a payee after the first time.
3) a chart of monthly totals, that you can drill into to see the underlying transactions. 4) asset tracking: a space to enter anything you own that is of value.

What to put in: Separate books for personal life and business.

How to enter transactions:
1) if you using a debit card, ask for a receipt.
2) reconcile the receipt when the transaction shows up in Mint, and toss that receipt when the transaction shows up from your bank (usually within two business days). Pending transactions from the bank are shown as Pending, and usually will get a better description once they are no longer pending.
3) if you are making a cash transaction, you can enter it cash right away. As soon as you can stand still for a minute, after a few single-handed key strokes you have created the transaction and assigned it to a spending category, and you are done with your entry!”

At the end of the day, simpler numbers:

We can  turn over any lingering fear of numbers and pick up tools that give us a more accurate and honest reflection of where we put our energy, our money, our time, our love. In this process of getting clarity on our money, we can discover the path to enlightenment and truth. We can stay discover the truth in our numbers.

Ask:

Have the things I have been doing up till now to get my money straight been working for me? If not, am I willing to try something new?

Meditation for Today:

If we automate our numbers, we can reduce the time it takes to do them, and we can become more likely to do them and keep them up to date.

Affirmation for Today:

Today I will learn something new and grow in the process. I am more powerful each day I adopt a new tool or technique in pursuit of the perfect number tracking technique for me. I will be in afraid. I will educate myself in what is out there. I will develop a plan for acquiring the tools I find appropriate for me.

*Links and further reading:

Mint.com is a free application written by Intuit (the makers of Quicken).  You can register using this link: http://Mint.com.  You can also download the app on the Apple app store, or using the Amazon app store here: Mint.com Personal Finance.

How to Use Mint.com (Kindle book)

Helpful links on PlentyTML.com:

See our Fourth Step Template which helps us to take a fearless moral inventory.

Some members, with the help of their Pressure Relief Group, take a moratorium from debt payments in order to get their spending under control.  See this Debt Moratorium sample letter to creditors for one example.

If you are new to this blog, check out our overview of the program of recovery from compulsive debting.  If you like this post, please click one of the like/share buttons on the site.  If you would like to receive daily “Thoughts for today”, enter your email and a username in the subscription form at the top of this page.  Some links on this page bring you to other sites. Clicking a book title or image brings you to information about purchasing it.  If you buy something it will help support this blog with a small commission – which does not add to your cost!

Copyright 2016, PlentyOfTimeMoneyAndLove.com.  

(*) Mint.com is not DA Conference Approved Literature. Mint is not a sponsor of this website. PlentyTML.com is not affiliated with Mint.com. Use mint is at your own risk.