Planning for 2011

I spent the afternoon today putting together our 2011 financial spreadsheet. I use an excel spreadsheet I created and update it each year (and as the year progresses). These are my tabs:

• Passwords - because we need a place to keep them! I don't write the whole password out, just enough for my memory to jog along.

• How to Pay Ideal - logs what we would pay each check if we had the money to do everything we wanted

• Plinko - I know, plinko? A while back I was trying to figure out what to do with extra income that arrives over our budgeting amount. The picture in my head was of the good ol' fashioned plinko board (or a change counting machine) - we would dump our money in and it would separate into the correct categories and amounts. The exercise showed me that we need to make approximately $900 more per month to do everything we'd like to.

• Assets - Just what it says. I track our freedom bank account here as well as quarterly updates on IRA's, Bonds and such. This is a sad little tab. :P

• Debt - The tab I wish would go away permanently!! This has our debt levels I try to update each month along with interest rates. I also keep track of what our levels were at the beginning of the year so I can figure out how much we paid off during the year come December.  

• Company Info - tries to keep track of any company I do business with. Name, address, phone, internet address, email. 

• How to Pay Reality -  logs what we pay each check based on the reality of what our checks probably will be. I copy this to a new tab and rename it for the current month as the year goes. That way I have a template and can track and plan month by month.

Is this the best way to track money? For me, right now, yes it is. It is free, it makes sense in my mind, and I like it! What more can we ask of something tracking our dollars and cents?