The Nerdist Way_ How to Reach the Next Level (In Real Life) - Chris Hardwick [78]
Thanks for watching me get shot twice,
Emmett “Doc” Brown
P.S.—You’re a fucking CHICKEN.
TRACKING YOUR EXPENSES
It may not surprise you to learn that while I was busy ruining my credit, I was terrible with money. I always just had a vague sense that there might be some in there. I must have been spending at an alarming rate because one year in my twenties I made about $400,000 and it was all gone by the middle of the following year. #1stWorldProblemsAgain.
A few years later, when I starting cleaning stuff up, I decided that I needed to know where every cent was going. Only THEN could I adjust accordingly and NOT have “your debit card didn’t go through” moments. I think most people would almost rather be punched in the neck than experience that. It’s SO easily avoidable, as long as you do a little “ounce of prevention” work. (Nice one, Franklin! And I GET IT. You invented the post office. Stop looking so SMUG on the hundy, already.)
This thing I’m about to tell you may never have occurred to you to do, but when you see how frakking simple it is you might feel a light go on in your head. Or you’ll think I’m a douche giving you obvious information. Either one of those. TRACK YOUR FINANCES EVERY DAY. No, wait! Don’t get mad! It’s actually remarkably easy. You’ll have a one-time emotional fee of setting everything up, but once you do, you’ll auto-auto-AUTOMATE your way to a better YOU! In 2003, there wasn’t much choice. I think there was Quicken, Microsoft Money, and spreadsheets. (I’m sure there were a few others but I can’t remember.) I chose Quicken. I took statements as far back as I could find, which was 2002. Mind you, they were all unopened and in a box because I had not given much of a shit. I spent a weekend meticulously entering and categorizing. Business, Personal, Utilities, House, Auto, Tax—you don’t need a ton of categories, and you can always make subcategories after you get flying. Also you don’t really have to go back past the current tax year if you don’t want to, but I recommend it. Once I had my marathon entering session (sounded sexier than I intended), I set up the automatic account update feature, which is as simple as a few menu navigations to link to your various accounts and credit card companies. Then I set it up to download new transactions every morning at 6:00 a.m. From then on, the first thing I would do every morning was go on to Quicken, see which transactions had downloaded, and make sure they were properly categorized. (Your regular transactions will properly categorize themselves.) This morning ritual took three minutes. And guess who NEVER AGAIN had to scramble at tax time to pull all of his shit together? THIS GUY
Taking a few minutes of your time will save you piles of stress. You just export your info, email it to your accountant, send him any W2s you have, and you’re DONE. With this method, you know how much you have and where every cent of it goes, at all times. You can even set savings goals and budgets. Again, once you have the numbers to look at, you can be the god of your finances. You will feel like the most responsible human you know!!!