Identifying Your Spending Habits

We frequently talk about paying yourself first and tracking excessive spending. But it's often a task easier said than done. If you have a hard time sitting down and setting financial goals and facing the reality of your spending habits, there are software programs available to help you (i.e., Quicken or QuickBooks).

Your bank may also help with this by providing spending tracking reports and provide financial reports on how much you spend over a period of days. Do you use this tool?

Are you familiar with www.mint.com? They are a free online (and secure) program that taps into your accounts and centralizes all your incoming and outgoing financial patterns. You can create budgets and they also have a new feature to allow you to set financial goals.

Whatever tool you use – identifying your spending habits is a crucial part of closing the gap on the millions of opportunities that may be slipping by! As uncomfortable as it may be to identify these issues, making the commitment is the first step to securing your financial future. You may not be aware of spending habits until you are able to see the financial summary available in these programs.