I can’t remember when it happened but was several years ago.
Every Saturday morning my wife and I make a big breakfast. Scrambled eggs, sausage, homemade bread or blueberry pancakes, and lots of coffee.
We’ll eat this big breakfast and then sit on the couch and drink coffee. At some point, I began to break out my laptop and start updating our financial dashboard.
Sitting side by side on the couch, I’d update all the funds based on Friday’s close, and sometimes, but not all the time, go into individual accounts and check balances.
I’m not sure why this habit started, I just started doing it. At first I would start updating the dashboard and I wouldn’t hear much from my wife. I would go about my business updating things and then I’d pop my head up and say how much we have.
Eventually one Saturday, probably months into this habit, I was done with the update and didn’t say anything. My wife looked over and said “aren’t you going to update me”? That’s when I knew she was in to it too.
Remember your “why”
I have heard many a financial advisor advise against regular checking of finances. I suppose if you are a tinkerer and prone to making knee jerk decisions based on little market vibrations then you should avoid frequent checking. I don’t tend make knee jerk reactions so I ignore this advice.
I’ve found that checking the dashboard gives me a regular reminder of my “why”. Why do I do what I do? Why don’t I spend money like my peers? Why don’t I drive a Ford Raptor and live in a 4,000 square foot house?
I look at the dashboard like a game, a strategy role playing game. I enjoy watching the numbers rise as the market goes up, just like running up the score in a game. If the market corrects, I reassure myself that doing nothing or buying more will strengthen my foundation and result in a steeper run upwards with the next bull market. Kind of like building up character attributes in a role playing game (Skyrim anyone?).
Over the years, the “why” has extended into work. Have a bad day, have a bad run in with someone at work, have a bad week, look at that dashboard and remember why you’re doing what you’re doing.
Speaking from experience it’s much more reassuring to look at what you’ve saved vs. items you bought that aren’t earning you any money.
Milestones
One of the things I’ve noticed after years of tracking and managing a spreadsheet is that milestones tend to pop out.
We have financial goals, but milestones are these small stepping stones that lead to the overall goal and help keep us motivated.
When we were considering paying off our mortgage, I used milestones to gauge the timing of when we should start making extra payments.
I’d watch our total cash balance relative to our remaining mortgage balance. I would look back at the average amount of cash saved over the past six or twelve months, and use that average to forward predict when we’d have a cash balance equivalent to our remaining mortgage principal.
This mindset spread out into decisions about spending money. Go out to dinner? Buying stuff on Amazon? Having a look at the dashboard and pending milestone made us think twice. In hindsight, the sacrifices were worth it. There were plenty of times where we could have gotten off our discipline had we not been doing the dashboard checking and picking out milestones.
Back to the couch…
Hopefully this post gives other couples out there some food for thought. Between my wife and I, it’s still myself that manages the finances in detail. But she’s also right there and integral in all decisions.
It was unintentional but our Saturday morning finance has worked wonders in unifying our mindset toward saving and investing.
Seeing the numbers change, how and why they change, has taken two people with two separate mindsets and aligned thoughts.
It wasn’t until we got into this habit that I realized how far apart we were on all things money. You hear about couples arguing about money, or forcing a sit down to talk about expenses and such. I guess we’re fortunate that we just naturally gravitated to this method without any fuss.