When my wife and I got married, I placed our honeymoon on a credit card. I was still in school and we didn’t have a lot of disposable income and I deemed putting it on credit cards as not ideal, but necessary. Largely due to the wisdom of my wife, we tightened up the belt and paid it off after several months.
This experience has served as a very valuable lesson for me about staying out of debt. Before that time, outside of school loans, I hadn’t experienced the weighty feeling of debt. After we paid the last payment on our honeymoon debt, I realized how nice it was to not have a credit card payment. Since then I’ve become much more debt averse and now see the wisdom in living life debt free. J. Reuben Clark eloquently stated that
Getting spending under control is the first step in the search of financial freedom.
I’ve found the better I understand where my money is going, the better I’m able to control those spending urges. Several online tools are now available for those of us who have never been very good about recording each purchase in our check registers. Using one of these tools you can import transactions from your online account (automatically if your bank is supported) from each of your financial institutions to have a global view of your finances.
My personal favorite of these services is Mint, although there are others (Wesabe, Geezeo, Buxfer). What I love about tools like this is that I can go in and assign categories to each of my purchases and easily understand where I’m spending money. I’ve looked at Wesabe and Geezeo and they just don’t seem to work for me quite as smoothly as Mint.
While it matters less which tool or system you use, of paramount importance is actively monitoring where you spend your money. If you are anything like me, the first couple of months you track your spending, you’ll be surprised at some of the places where your money is going.
Interest never sleeps nor sickens nor dies; it never goes to the hospital; it works on Sundays and holidays; it never takes a vacation…Once in debt, interest is your companion every minute of the day and night; you cannot shun it or slip away from it; you cannot dismiss it; it yields neither to entreaties, demands, or orders; and whenever you get in its way or cross its course or fail to meet its demands, it crushes you. - LDS General Conference Report, April 1938, 103.
Getting spending under control is the first step in the search of financial freedom.
I’ve found the better I understand where my money is going, the better I’m able to control those spending urges. Several online tools are now available for those of us who have never been very good about recording each purchase in our check registers. Using one of these tools you can import transactions from your online account (automatically if your bank is supported) from each of your financial institutions to have a global view of your finances.
My personal favorite of these services is Mint, although there are others (Wesabe, Geezeo, Buxfer). What I love about tools like this is that I can go in and assign categories to each of my purchases and easily understand where I’m spending money. I’ve looked at Wesabe and Geezeo and they just don’t seem to work for me quite as smoothly as Mint.
While it matters less which tool or system you use, of paramount importance is actively monitoring where you spend your money. If you are anything like me, the first couple of months you track your spending, you’ll be surprised at some of the places where your money is going.
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