Canadian Finance Blog

Posted: 15 Jun 2011 02:00 AM PDT

Everyone sees life a little bit different. For me, I see life in black and white. When I am given a set of numbers, for example, to multiply or add or divide, a solution will simply pop into my head without much thought. Likewise, if I am given a text to digest and conquer, I will quickly be able to scan through it and locate any pertinent information. Others, however, do not work the same way. Given a math problem, some are unable to understand the order of operations, so after much work, they still end up with the wrong number. Given the same text, the words blur into a grey meaningless mass. Their talents are elsewhere. Given a photograph, I would say, “that is a picture of a horse”. Others would be able to see the emotion and meaning behind and within that same horse, something that my eyes simply do not perceive.

Therefore, when it comes to your personal finance, you may have come to the realization that the standard line by line budget does not work for you. Perhaps you have wrestled with it and attacked it, and forced it to become a weekly rite, like prayer or fasting, though you hardly understand what you are doing and why it hurts so much. In that case, I would suggest reorganizing your financial information into a style that you better understand.

Financial Calendar

Over the last week I made for myself a financial calendar. I used Google’s calendar, so that I could share it with my wife, but you can use any software program or physical calendar you would like. In order to create this calendar, what I did was go over my financial statements for the last month, determined every expense that was reoccurring, and plot when I pay bills onto the chronological map. Using the “repeat” function of an event, I set up paychecks, bills, debt payments and anything else that regularly came out of my bank account to show up on the calendar the date and the amount that would be coming out.

What this does is two very important things. First, it shows you just how much money you are spending, and exactly when you are spending it. Understandably, there were a number of expenses that came out of at the end of the month. I thought that most of our bills did. However, I was actually quite surprised at how many expenses came out at the beginning of the month – on the 1st or the 2nd. So even though I had been feeling “safe” when our bank account was at a healthy balance at the end of the month, more things were coming out of it the first week of the next month.

Second, it allows me to plan ahead. I have a week of vacation coming up, and I already know exactly how much money is going to be coming out of my account during that week of vacation. Knowing this, I can plan to make sure that there is enough money around to pay for those bills and expenses while also being sure to enjoy my time off work.

While all of these things are very possible to do simply through text and numbers, visualizing it on a week by week basis really allows you to see things from a different angle. Even if you don’t need to create a calendar to get a grasp of your finances, it might be worthwhile to do it anyways just to see if you can spot something you hadn’t before.

Extra Credit

You can even turn your calendar into a record keeping device. Any time you make a purchase that you would consider “major” – say, over $50 or so, write it down on your calendar. Perhaps over time you can look back and see if you tend to spend more money on Tuesdays, or if you go through “phases” of spending and saving. The great thing about keeping a historical financial calendar is that it is something you can look back on for years to come, learning from, and perhaps even getting some wonderful memories from.

Do you have a financial calendar?

Making a Financial Calendar originally appeared on Canadian Finance Blog on June 15, 2011.