Sometime recently there was a big hubbub about a personal finance personality saying, and I do paraphrase, “If you didn’t spend $5/day on coffee you would have $1 million at retirement.” (Orman, maybe?)
Anyhoo, the responses went something like:
“You can’t save your way to wealth!”
“Nobody gets rich saving $5!”
“F you! I like my coffee!”
My response was a little more incredulous… “Coffee costs $5?!”
Empower – Free Financial Management Tools
Since my college days of living hand to mouth, I’ve tracked every penny I’ve earned and spent. It was a bit necessary if I wanted to have more month than money. At first I used pencil & paper, then a spreadsheet, and eventually Quicken.
Years later, after reading Your Money or Your Life, I began tracking passive / investment income with focus and determination. I added more calculations and pages and charts to my spreadsheet, and eventually started using Mint.com.
I credit this practice of tracking all income, expenses, and investment activity with our ability to optimize our spending and grow net worth. It is hard to overspend or buy frivolous things when the numbers are staring you in the face. There is no pretending and no hoping for the best.
It really doesn’t matter which method of tracking you use, as long as you do so…
After 20+ years of practice and experience, I now rely primarily on Empower to do it all for me. It does everything that my old spreadsheet did in a fraction of the time. It’s great… plus, you know… free.
Disclosure: GCC is a Empower affiliate. If you start using Empower from a link on this page, we may receive compensation. Opinions are my own, and also free. For all of our International readers, sorry, Empower is currently US only.
