We are always trying to improve our Money Mastery tools and technology to allow people to see themselves as they really are, right at the moment they spend money. If you can know how much you have left in a spending category before you spend, it alters your thinking to make choices aligned with what your goals are.
Here is a typical chain of events for a person I will call Larry. He has a plan to spend $500 a month on groceries, and $200 a month on eating out. This amount of money fits into his income and spending allocations. But when he goes to a gun show, he falls in love with a hammerless handgun. This price is $837. Larry is not using a tracking device such as a mobile phone app or a paper tracking system, so he must search his memory to think of where he will get this money so he does not have to
leave this purchase on a credit card and incur interest expense. He thinks of his eating-out budgeted amount of $200. He agrees with himself to not eat out for at least four months, so he thinks he’s good to purchase this handgun.
Two weeks later his sister has a birthday and he needs to take her out to dinner. Larry forgets all about his commitment not to eat out and goes ahead and spends $52. Two weeks after, he sees his doctor about his diabetes and is now forced to eat different foods which will cost him an extra $100 each month. But this is not all, his car breaks down and needs brakes, and his story goes on and on and on until Larry is unable to pay off the credit card purchase of the handgun.
Here’s my point: If Larry had a way to know what he truly spent in 
every category in a Spending Plan, at the point of purchase by looking at his actual expenses on a mobile tracking app, such as the Money Mastery app, and already had his sister’s birthday in mind at the beginning of the month, along with an emergency fund that he monitored every time he turned on his computer, he would make better decisions. He would see his could not possibly fit the handgun purchase into the middle of all the other commitments he has already made.
The future is here — old school “budgeting” and traditional banking are going away. Go to www.moneymastery.com and learn how you can build a spending plan and keep track of it every day on your Smart phone so that each and every time you make a financial decision you will know it is an informed one. Boring, you say? Too much in-your-face? Too much information, possibly? Review your personal spending and ask yourself:
- Do you want to change and be in control of your money?
- Do you want to get out of ALL debt, including your mortgage, in 10 years or less?
- Do you want to have at least 3 months of emergency savings in place?
- Do you want to feel free to buy that new coat, a quick getaway vacation with your spouse, or that handgun possibly because you have an emotional savings account set up?
First learn how to build a spending plan. Second, if you can use technology to make better financial decisions, with practice you will soon be on top of all your finances. Remember…“That which we persist in doing becomes easier to do, not that the task has changed, but that our capacity to do, has increased.” — Heber J Grant.
