We have been spending the last few days talking about the importance of stewardship and developing a plan to help get our personal finances in order. A lot of this may be extremely basic for some people but because much of what is required to create and maintain a responsible home budget isn’t taught in school, I decided to start from the beginning. If you don’t currently have a system set up in your house then I would suggest reading the previous two posts to help catch up.

The first step that we took was to create a simple filing system and calendar to help keep track of our bills. Today we are going to set up a system for tracking income and expenses. Proverbs 27:23-24 tells us;

Be sure you know the condition of your flocks, give careful attention to your herds; for riches do not endure forever, and a crown is not secure for all generations.

Proverbs 27:23-24

So in light of that, we are going to set up a system to ensure that we can constantly monitor and give careful attention to the condition of our finances.

If the thought of this makes you groan, believe me, I understand. It was many years before I was able to set up a system that accurately let me see where my money was going. But the good news is, it’s only going to take you about 15 minutes.

Create an account with Mint.com

Mint.com is a free, online, personal finance tool that helps you to track multiple accounts with banks, credit card companies and other financial institutions. It also easily allows you to create a budget and see how much you are spending in different categories such as groceries, utilities, dining, gifts, ect.. And the best part is that, after a little setup time, it takes very little maintenance on your part. Each day, it will download your transactions from your financial institution(s) and categorize them according to where the money was spent.

If you have trouble with Mint.com, or you are more familiar with the quicken interface, you can also set up your accounts with QuickenOnline.com. I have used Quicken for years but am personally partial to Mint.com because of its interface and its ability to include the value of my property (such as a house, car, jewelry, ect..) in my net worth. We’re going to set that up in a future post but for now, just be sure to get your major accounts listed. Make sure to include the following accounts:

-Checking Accounts

- Savings Accounts

- Credit Card

- Mortgage

- Loans (including auto and student)

-Investment Accounts

If you can’t get your investment or retirement account in there it should be ok. We’re mainly just trying to get the “high traffic” accounts, that is, the accounts that are used on a regular basis. If Mint.com isn’t set up with one of your major financial institutions, then you may want to try QuickenOnline.com.

Now that we have a method of tracking credit card and bank transactions, that only leaves one area…cash. If you are one of those people who have been using a check card or credit/debit card for so long that you’ve forgotten what cash looks like, then this isn’t for you. But, if you do carry cash for vending machines, parking meters and such then we need to keep an eye on that as well. I’m going to recommend an age old budgeting tradition. Keep a small notepad or even just a piece of paper with you each day for the next two weeks and write down how much cash you spend. It’s amazing how a little change here and there add up.

Don’t forget to keep tracking (and paying) your bills in the mean time. We’re going to come back to those in a few days when we set up our filing system. Next post we are going to discuss finding and tracking your net worth.