Good Habits

It was perhaps the first time in my adult life that money was being managed and it was partly through a Commodore 64 program by a company called Microswift.

The spreadsheet we called Houseplan was as simple as they come, each week we kept a record of what we spent on almost everything, and often, in those first few months it was surprising how much money was frittered away.

The frittering was untrackable before the spreadsheet, I would take some money out of the bank at the ATM and it would go in the wallet, as soon as a $20 bill was "broken" it seemed to vanish after it went in the pocket.

Tracking money is a serious concept but I believe we all feel foolish to do it, don't know why, but keeping a tight hold on the pursestrings seems to be viewed as negative by most people, the "Scrooge" and "Fagin" concept, driven into us all from our childhood years.

The spreadsheet changed that, we didn't become financial brainiacs because of it, but it gave us a heads up about where the money was going.