The above is my bank balance over from July 2010 to present day, May 2011.
My main source of income has been my monthly S$400 allowance that I get as a National Serviceman (You can see the sharp sudden leaps where my pay-day is), and you get a rough idea of my spending- a very rough idea.
I don’t keep track in much detail. As you can see, though, there is a general upward trend.
The interesting thing is that I haven’t really taken the trouble to properly identify my financial goals or manage my spending- the only thing I’ve been doing is taking the information from my receipts when I withdraw money at the ATM, and plotting it down in a simple 2 column Excel spreadsheet, with the date and the balance. It takes less than a few seconds of effort.
The mere act of tracking my withdrawals, interestingly, has reduced them. What gets measured gets managed.
Pay attention- you will notice that I didn’t save much money in the first couple of months, when I was still used to spending all that I had. I then started saving money. See the period of time where there’s a sudden drop? That was when I had neglected to track my money. Really!
What gets measured, gets managed.
