Reckoning time has come for my wallet and I. My spending over the past month has been largely unaccounted for, due to a number of circumstances that I spoke to in past entries. Now it is time to go through all my records and figure out how much I have spent in the past 30 days and what I have spent it on.
Luckily, I keep pretty meticulous records thanks to my friends over at yodlee.
I am not a very meticulous record keeper (hell I’m not that meticulous with anything). Thus keeping track of my finances is something I have had difficulty with in the past. I have solved it by doing the following. I open up a checking account with direct deposit. For this I used ING Direct. Then I sign up for their check card. They have 3% APY and give cashback. Then I signed up for a yodlee account and linked it to my ING Direct account. Then I make all my purchases. Every single one of them, on my check card. Where I can’t do this I take money out of an ING ATM to avoid fees and categorize the transaction.
I also save EVERY receipt, though I just throw them in a box. This is because I am going to deduct EVERY single purchase I make while contracting to offset my tax burden. In case of an audit, it will be good to have these in my records. Using yodlee is much more convenient for me than balancing a checkbook or keeping track of a budget. With a few clicks I can categorize a transaction into a category or set up automatic rules for places of frequent purchase to move them into their related categories. It also has a ton of other nice features like bill reminders, billpay, portfolio manager, spending reports, net worth statements, budget thresholds, budget goals, etc.
Today I went through and categorized all my previously uncategorized purchases and this is what came up when all was said and done.
I do the same with all my other financial institutions as well.
An In depth analysis and discussion to come tomorrow.
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