7 | My Least Popular Belief

This won't be my most popular post, but it's still important to say out loud every so often so we keep ourselves honest.

Most (I want to say all!) personal finance tactics pale in comparison to having some way to consistently track your spending.

As a matter of fact, I think the other tactics are primarily trying to accommodate the fact that as humans we refuse to reflect on our spending.

Enormous levels of income can mask this reality for some period. Enormous levels of financial wealth can likely delay it a little longer, but eventually the conversation will end up in one of two places.

A question of viability - where's the money going?

Or a question of contentment - is the money going where you want it to go?

Honestly, I think this is a good thing, even if it doesn't seem like it on the surface.

I don't think we will ever define our lives by how much we earned or where we saved or how we invested.

I think our financial lives get defined by how we spend what has been earned, saved, and invested.

All the colorful pieces of life come back to the quality of our spending and yet we still avoid talking about or tracking our spending like it's the plague.

The very thing with the most impact is constantly pushed to the bottom of the list because it's too complicated and too hard.

The fact that it's hard and that most people don't do it might be a pretty good indicator that figuring it out is the secret.

Additional Resources

The Biggest Returns by Morgan Housel

Budgeting Equals Awareness by Carl Richards

Accounting (and small business) by Seth Godin