Reminded by a recent comment, I went and looked at my financial records in Quicken, and the last time I updated it was about three months ago…
I seem to go through a pattern when it comes to Quicken. I realize that I really should keep better track of my spending, so I start up a new Quicken database and enter my latest balances and updates. Then, for a while I’ll meticulously keep track of all of my bank account and credit card transactions at the end of the day. Then I realize that I’m not really learning much about how I spend my money, since a lot of it is in cash transactions, so I set up a ‘cash’ account and start keeping track of every little cash payment, too. Then I get busy or distracted, so I just leave the receipts near the computer and enter the updates whenever I have free time, using the monthly statements to fill in any holes I may have forgotten about. And then I suddenly realize that I haven’t updated it in three months and it’s just way too behind now…
Then, a couple years later, I start the whole process over again, swearing that I’ll do a better job this time.
Oh well, maybe in 2006…