I’ve had Mint set up for almost a year, but until I started this personal finance blog and actually started to care about getting on track and eliminating my $25,000 debt, I never payed attention to it. I knew I could set up a budget on Mint and track my money easily, but I never did. The emails came to my inbox so often but I just deleted them. But today was different – I actually payed attention.
It’s not like I didn’t know the information already. It was my weekly recap email and I already had checked Mint earlier and knew all the gritty details. But I still opened the email and checked it out for the first time. I looked at my numbers and budget and took a second to consider all the information. It felt good to be aware of my situation and know what’s going on rather than continuing on blindly without facing the reality of it all. I’m pretty happy that I’m finally at least paying attention to my finances.
I asked my mom the other day if she tracked where her money went. She had brought up something about money and I figured it was a good time to ask. Of course the answer is no. I think only my Overly Frugal Father is the only one in my family who has ever tracked where his money went. I think the rest of us were scared off of both being frugal and paying attention to where our money went because of his extreme methods. But I’m not letting his crazy ways ruin the rest of my life, financially speaking. I’m not going to be like my mom or my siblings and just pray the money things work out. It’s silly. So I’m going to keep learning and paying attention and make this thing work. Hurray for paying attention to personal finance!
