Building Blocks

June 22, 2022

Recently we had our first meeting with James, our Financial Coach – who as it turns out was one of the Summit team members who helped get our accounts set up when we first became members. One of the things we discussed was building upon the foundation we currently have in order to achieve our goals.

When Robin and I got engaged and made the leap to move in together a decade ago, she shared a budget spreadsheet she put together to help track monthly recurring expenses. Initially I was a bit taken aback, unsure of what actual result her effort was yielding – after all, the bills were due regardless and it wasn’t like we were going to switch cell phone or electric utility providers on a frequent basis. Over the years I can now attest she made a believer out of me. Since we moved to our home in Fall River, I have been the one diligently keeping up with the spreadsheet, which now has data going back five years. It has grown over with our family the years, as we had our first, and then second child – and the daycare expenses that come with. This helps us with our monthly and annual budgeting, it can serve as a reminder of upcoming expenses that are biannual or quarterly so we can make sure it fits in that month’s budget, and now that we have enough data, we can accurately track what our expenses for each line item will be into the upcoming months and years. We have also expanded upon this spreadsheet to include not only our recurring expenses (think utilities/services, insurance, childcare, loans) but have recently added tax return and retirement account information to get a more complete picture (as well as trying to better understand changes in our tax filings year over year – but that’s a topic for another post).

With the spreadsheet as our foundation, the next step is for me to finally enter the 21st century. I am still managing all my other expenses the same way I was taught for a semester in high school – handwriting in a check register(s). The benefit for me is that it always serves as a reminder that I bought something, and maybe, subconsciously helps keep my spending in check. The downside is that I really have now way to track what I am spending money on, and how much/how often. Robin and I believe we have a rough idea of what we spend on groceries, gas, entertainment, etc. per month, but at this point it is more guess than fact. And one of the realizations that we’ve both had is while those $5 or $7 fast food stops are convenient, they are likely not only unhealthy nutritionally but unhealthy financially – as they seem innocuous individually, but when combined may be more significant than we realize.

To me, Robin and James, identifying where we are spending seemed like the first logical step to take. With that information, we can get a clearer understanding of what steps we should be taking to achieve our goals and bring a bit more clarity to those goals. Fortunately, we have Summit’s Climbr to facilitate our journey. This tool allows us to enter our accounts across multiple financial institutions and have a holistic, accurate snapshot of our spending habits. Climbr also automates tracking of progress towards our goals.

We are excited to take this step and are trying to remain cautiously optimistic about what our monthly spending looks like – but regardless, we will be much more at ease when we have a firm grasp and can begin strategizing.