One Million and Beyond

The Devil is in the Details

By Matt - Monday, April 30th, 2007

I’m sure that most of you are familiar with that saying, it’s one of the things that I’ve noticed in the past couple weeks is that it isn’t the big tasks that take up the most time but the little small ones. When it comes to work making sure that the details are worked out is what takes up the most time and these things are the little tweaks.

When it comes to personal finances I don’t think this differs very much. We can get an idea of where our money is at and how we’re budgeting it but we don’t bother with the little details. I think this is where a lot of people’s budgets break down and I know it’s where mine has in the past. To give you an idea how quickly a budget can break down in the details is imagine that you planned to spend $100 for food in a week and you thought you could make it work. Unfortunately you forgot to pack your lunch 2 days in the week (something that can happen when you’re busy) and you buy lunch at the food court twice for $5. Now if you’re not hurting for money you won’t notice the $10 that just left your wallet but the problem is that little detail that you overlooked was 10% of your budget.

The real devil in the details comes up not with the bigger items such as eating out but in how much we spend on groceries. The brands, sales and quantities of products can change our shopping amount drastically. Add these little changes over time, include the unnecessary little expenses and this is where the details can make or break our budgets.

I’ve always been blown away by how much money gets spent not in the $20 chunks but in the $1-2 variety. You don’t think about the small ones nearly as much as you would the big ones. As an experiment try to track all of your spending over the course of a month. First off unless you’re already frugal and good with your money this exercise is a challenge, but when you see the results you might be surprised.

The last time I tracked every penny I spent I was shocked by where my money went and I think its about time to start that experiment again. I challenge my readers to try it for a month, are you as good as you think you are at controlling your spending? Once you’ve had a chance to do this and you stick with tracking your money you can budget more accurately by keeping the details of your spending in mind.

Technorati Tags: money, spending, personal finance, budget, budgeting

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