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07/07/2005: "goals 1 (finance tracking)"
i'm in the process of delineating goals for projects i'm thinking about. when i'm done with this, i think a mindmap would be the best way to track the different projects and their respective goals.
project $
general goal: track my money
specific goals that define what the project must do:
- have an idea of how much money i have, and in which accounts
- track expenses by category
- predict out how much money i will have in the future
- save receipts to track what i pay for and when (merge with physical receipts for certain items)
- keep track of monthly recurring and variable expenses
this means i don't need anything complicated. i can download monthly credit card statements for most of my transactions (i'd say over 90% of my transactions, comprising more than 95% of overall expenditures). monthly bank statements provide a picture of how i pay my credit card bills, and also how i gain income (as i have direct deposit from my job into my bank account). monthly mutual fund statements give a picture of how those funds get money from my bank (a level of redundancy is available at each level). the idea is to dl these three statements every month. i'm not sure whether or not i want to match these to receipts that i may save. for example, i usually purchase coffee with small globs of cash (<$2) - but rarely save these receipts.
i could save all reciepts, but then monthly statements from my visa card would be excessively redundant - they'd allow me to check the validity of charges, but i don't feel that i'm there yet. maybe an initial level of discipline is good. i can follow this with some other fancy jizz.