In all the reading I’ve done on personal finance and debt management, there is one rule or suggestion that makes me cringe every time I read it. That rule is simply, “keep track of what you spend”.

There are a few reasons why this is painful to me. One – I’m afraid to know. Two – I don’t want to be that anal about my spending. And three – it takes the fun out of money.

But after some consideration and the release of my holiday binge credit card statement that I mentioned in my last post (final total exceeded $400), I’ve decided that this step is a necessary evil.

My hope really is to keep track as a means of ensuring that I really need something – hopefully impulse purchases will be few and far between if I have to consult the “little black book” each time.

And speaking of impulse purchases, I’m using a former purchase of that nature to follow through with this task. After reading a post on The Simple Dollar, I’ve decided to use my moleskin notebook in a slightly different way.

Each payday I will create a header titled Pay Period month/day – month/day. Each purchase I make – I will write a description and subtract that from my paycheck/checking account balance.

Hopefully, this way, I’ll be able to see where my money goes.