How do we know how much we need (or will need) to come out ahead at the end of the month? When I am sitting down with a new client, she often asks this question, followed by something about not knowing, or thinking they spend too much, or don’t make enough. There have often been voices in her life saying that she “spends too much” but how so? Since this has been coming up with a great degree of regularity, I thought I’d put my suggested process down for you.

The most important step is to take stock of “What Is.”  If you have a roof over your head, food in your belly, a job to go to and a family that is taken care of, you’re doing it.  You’ve got the basics covered and oftimes we (women) forget to take a look at what we’re doing right, and rush right to the places where we (think) we are not doing enough.  Knowledge is power.  And security. And comfort. And peace.

First we need to compile what you have spent.  A nice full twelve months will give you a more complete picture to work from.

Make a list of the places from where you spend money:

• Credit Card(s) or Debit Card(s)
• Checking Account(s)
• Savings Account(s)
• Brokerage Account(s)

Login to your online bank account for each of these banks, credit unions or institutions. We want to compile the data from each of these accounts into a master list of your current spending plan.

Rather than download a copy of your statements (because then you’d have to input the data to a spreadsheet) choose Export data or Download your data.  If you cannot find where to access, look it up under “Help”).  You will likely  have the option to download to a .csv (comma separated values) format or and Excel spreadsheet (.xlsx) format. Either will work inside a spreadsheet.

Then you’ll want to select dates to include, so make certain you go back the full 12 months.  If it’s the 10th of September, then download from August 1st of the previous year up through the end of August, this year.

Each time you download the data, save each one, labeling it by banking institution or credit card, and the dates.  If your online account only allowed you to download as a .csv file, then when you open it, select the Save As feature and save it as a spreadsheet (.xlsx).

Once you’ve got the data on the screen, take a look at your columns, as you’ll want to create a uniform order to each set of downloads.  For instance:

• Date of transaction
• Type of transaction (debit, ACH deposit, ATM, transfer, deposit, ACH debit, Quickpay etc.)
• Description or Payee
• Amount
• Check number (if applicable)
• Add a column labeling the account (i.e. ChaseChkg, AMEX, SkymilesCC etc.)

Continue to do this for each of your spending accounts to have them all downloaded. We’ll talk about categorizing your expenses in the next blog post.