My financial system involves a few different bank accounts and a simple plan for all of the income that I receive.
I don’t keep any budget on paper where I have to track all my purchases. That has never worked for me - all it takes is a few days of not tracking the budget and the whole thing falls apart.
Instead I put a certain percentage of my income into different bank accounts or into debt payments. It’s the same percent every time.
An Example of the Simple Financial System at Work
For example, the financial system looks something like this. A hypothetical person “Bob” might have three bank accounts and a credit card. He could use them to keep track of different financial needs.
He might set them up this way:
——
Checking Account #1: Rent and Bills
Checking Account #2: Groceries, Gas, and Fun Spending
Savings Account: Long-Term Savings
Credit Card Debt — self-explanatory
——
Then he could use a set of “filters” to determine where his income goes. Let’s say he wants to put 20% into savings, 10% against his debt, and then an even split between the two checking accounts.
If earns $500 in his weekly paycheck, it’ll disperse to his bank accounts like this:
Checking Account #1: +$175
Checking Account #2: +$175
Savings Account: +$100
Credit Card Debt: $50 payment
This makes life much easier because now Bob does not need to keep track in his head of how much money he needs to save for rent as the month goes on. He can look at each bank account and see how much money is allocated for each use, then he can spend flexibly within that structure.
I’ve been using this system on and off for over a year, and consistently now for about 2.5 months. It helps me relax about money and spend smartly.
When I think back to how I used to manage my money, barely keeping track of it, I shudder.
Personal Finance Update:
Here’s a numbers update for this post:
ASSETS:
Checking Account #1 (Bills/Rent): $610
Checking Account #2 (day-to-day spending) $123
Checking Account #3 (misc crypto tokens): $75
Savings/Tax Account #1: $897
Steem Liquid Wallet: $0
Steem Power: SP 1,776 // $5,487
Total Assets: $7,192
DEBTS:
Money Owed to my Dad: $10,008
PayPal Credit: $5,668
Short Term Steem Loan: $150
Total Debts: $15,826
NET WORTH AS OF TODAY: $-8,634
LAST WEEK: $5,924
NET CHANGE: $-2,710
I guess my last post was right on the money:
The cryptocurrency market is crashing, perhaps the bubble is popping. It’s all good because everybody who wasn’t caught up in FUD knew this would happen…
Final Thoughts
Of course it doesn’t feel good to watch the prices plummet. I am hoping Steem can hang on to some of its gains, even if that is just to hang out around $2 or something. But right now there’s not much any of us can do but to hodl on and wait it out.
The only time I would get freaked out would be if steem crashed like this when the market was fine. That would be terrible. But the whole market is doing it, so we are just along for the ride with everybody else.
We’ll see what happens, let’s all just try and remain chill for now.
