When I was 12, I was given my own passbook for my savings account.\u00a0 I was told to “Save for College” so all my babysitting money and rag money went there.\u00a0 Rags? Yes, through girl scouts I’d learned about the market for clean rags; some went to the making of rag rugs and some to painters.<\/p>\n
I also discovered that what money went\u00a0 into the account could also come out<\/em> just by filling out the form differently at the bank. Add to this that I learned how to sneak out of Saturday AM religion class and meet my girl friends at Woolworths for fries and pop after stopping by the bank for funds. Within less than three months, I also learned about bank statements.\u00a0 Seems these showed up at the family home quarterly and my ill conceived plan was exposed.\u00a0<\/p>\n If, I’d known how to track funds back then, I might have made different choices.\u00a0<\/p>\n Now days, we can keep track of our money by the moment with apps and having a goal like going to college, getting a new computer, purchasing a new phone system for the office, emergency fund, all require cash.\u00a0 Over the years, I’ve learned that tracking cash and spending can become a way to reach goals faster.\u00a0 Starting with a goal is key.\u00a0 Just saying, “I want to retire someday<\/em>” is not likely to get the retirement of your dreams.\u00a0 “I want to retire in 2025 with One million dollars in savings<\/em>” makes a great start.\u00a0 Now, are we on the path?<\/p>\n Let’s stick with the retirement goal, so we need to save and of course still spend, but control it.\u00a0 Using an app that will allow you to track your accounts is helpful.\u00a0 If you want to try these, PLEASE make sure your mobile device has a password!<\/strong>\u00a0 Check these free ones out for personal use:<\/p>\n Reaching a goal means making decisions now for the greater good later.\u00a0 This often feels burdensome while it is happening, but my experience with tracking my own investments is the satisfaction on the road to the goal can be part of the fun.<\/p>\n Back to the 12 year old, Linda.\u00a0 She needed a goal better than “Save for College” and she needed some money for having fun. All budgets and personal plans need some flexibility and honest review both for the short term and long term feasibility.\u00a0 If hobbies keep you sane, than that needs to be part of the budget but maybe it is modified to feed the craving yet move forward on the goal.\u00a0 <\/p>\n How do you track your savings, spending and goals for your personal finance?\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When I was 12, I was given my own passbook for my savings account.\u00a0 I was told to “Save for College” so all my babysitting money and rag money went there.\u00a0 Rags? Yes, through girl scouts I’d learned about the market for clean rags; some went to the making of rag rugs and some to painters.<\/p>\n I also discovered that what money went\u00a0 into the account could also come out<\/em> just by filling out the form differently at the bank. Add to this that I learned how to sneak out of Saturday AM religion class and meet my girl friends at Woolworths for fries and pop after stopping by the bank for funds. Within less than three months, I also learned about bank statements.\u00a0 Seems these showed up at the family home quarterly and my ill conceived plan was exposed.<\/p>\n The three most popular apps for tracking spending and savings are Mint.com<\/a>,\u00a0 Personal Capital<\/a>, and Manillia<\/a>.\u00a0 Each has it’s own feeling and differ [More<\/a>]<\/p>\n How do you track your savings, spending and goals for your personal finance?\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal-improvement","category-trends"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1931"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1933,"href":"https:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1931\/revisions\/1933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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