There’s a saying that if you really want something bad enough you’ll find a way to make it happen.
Kinda like when you’re a broke ass college student, yet always manage to score booze every weekend ;)
I don’t know how badly you want freedom right now, but I can tell you this guy below sure wants it!
I just spent ~10-12 hours analyzing our 2018 monthly income statements and balance sheets and throwing it all into a chart-filled 19-slide Powerpoint deck for my wife and I’s epic 2018-in-review money meeting!
This is where we slice through 2018 data in all sorts of ways, display the 2019 plan we cooked up over the last few weeks, and then flash our all-time trendings now that we have 2 full years of data to drool over.
I do revenue analytics and forecasting by day, so our personal analysis gets some pretty & detailed charts too!
BOOM! Husband of the year!!
And while 19 pages may be a tad too much (18 I get, but 19???), fortunately you don’t need to be an analytics guru to track this stuff ;) Old school pen and paper or spreadsheets do the trick too! What matters is that you know where you’ve been so you can see where you’re going.
But if you do want to channel our financial stud muffin friend, here’s a stripped out version of his Powerpoint presentation he passed over, sans #’s: 2018 Annual Review
Additional notes on it:
“This doesn’t have any of my commentary, repeated agenda slides, or BEAUTIFUL transitions – and I deleted out the number axes, etc – but you might find some of the charts interesting.
In 2018 we were laser focused on getting my core income over our expenses. Finally got there :-) I call our core recurring income our A.T.I.S.T. income – After Taxes Insurance Savings Tithing.
Our normal monthly money meeting is just a one month income vs expense chart, an expense variance chart (pretty cool one showing categories we were most off in – under or over), and the cash flow plan through the end of the current year.”
So not only does he and his wife do a *yearly* recap and forecasting, but they also connect every *month* too to go over things! HUBBA HUBBA!
I asked him if it turns her on as much as it does me hearing this, haha, but sadly that was not the case… Although he did say she greatly appreciates it ;)
Regardless, you can tell they both really WANT this stuff badly, and constantly reviewing things will only help them reach their goals faster.
So A) If you’re not meeting up with your own spouse regularly to talk $$$, make it a goal to start this month! and B) If you’re single and/or your significant other hates money, ping me instead and I’ll happily be your accountability partner :)
Again, you don’t need anything as hardcore as this Powerpoint presentation to get going, but you DO need to know where you stand to better set yourself up for the future.
Everybody wants more money, but not everyone is willing to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! And the *doing* is where the magic lies!
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Haha this made me laugh this morning. Great job to him for planning in such detail and great job to his wife for attending the meetings and being on board. They are a great example of a couple working together to achieve their goals. ;)
Haha yeah – his wife is a good sport! I don’t know if I could get mine to sit through a presentation without her making fun of me the entire time ;)
That’s next level.
We need to up our game!
This sounds like a great monthly partnership meeting. :-) We’re in a holding pattern over here with our first baby. Just trying not to lose much money this first year before adjusting everything. I think we will be down $8k in our cash padding by the end of June. It’s going to be used towards our Roth IRA’s. Other than that, we seem to be treading water okay even though we are letting our contract employee handle the vast majority of the pet sitting jobs herself and living on our cut while staying at home with our daughter.
You wouldn’t have it any other way though, right? :) Such a beautiful thing to be able to spend time with your kids like that – especially at this age!
I love a good powerpoint presentation, but never thought to do it with our personal finance reviews! I do a monthly summary in excel which we’ve been tracking for over 5 years, and usually send my wife a one page ‘dashboard’ summarising all the key info. I might be inspired now to give the powerpoint presentation a whirl – big screen, microphone, music – the works!
Cheers, Frankie
I wanna see a copy of that spreadsheet!
The “dashboard” idea is good for those who haven’t inherited the nerd gene as many of us have ;)
Oh so very extreme but damn! I don’t have a spouse but maybe my kittie would listen to me?
J$$$-I read over the pensión link you graciously sent me and have decided (from your multiple examples) which one works for me. Thanks so much for helping me take one more step in the full-on-in-my-face-financial-reality world in 2019!
Haha glad I could help! The good part is that it gets easier and easier as time goes on, and one day you’ll realize you’re not even thinking about money anymore :)
I seriously love this so much! I love my spreadsheets, but this PowerPoint would totally speak to my engineer husband who is used to giving presentations to executives with similar charts and graphs.
Oooooh please tell me you’re going to whip one up and surprise him with it???? :)
While the 19 page power point presentation sounds over the top (and really never expected to see another power point presentation after I retired), I would have appreciated someone taking the time to help me work through my finances. Being single you really don’t have to be accountable to anyone and that can be a problem at least for me. Only been tracking my net worth for several months and while I was excited initially, didn’t feel that excitement for month of Dec. Will keep chugging away at it though.
Please do! Once it becomes habit it’s so much easier as time goes on! Especially when the markets are back in full upswing again ;) You could also connect up with a Money Coach who would not only help you stay accountable, but also be a fresh pair of eyes on your goals too?
Here’s a list I curated a few years ago from coaches in our community, and while I’m not sure how updated it is now (I no longer run the site), I’m sure many are still active:
https://directory.rockstarfinance.com/coaches/money-coaches
Hi Robin,
I’m single and retired also and found YNAB to be a great accountability partner. And found J Money after I had some success. I highly recommend it, along with their educational podcasts. I tried regular budgeting and spread sheets, for years and years, but didn’t know enough to make them work.
In 5 years, I went from over spending all the time to having sizable saving. Things still get better all the time. Wishing you similar progress.
I’ll second that! YNAB is dope if you can get into the habit of it (takes people a while, but once you’re sucked in you’re good ;))
Oh my goodness, that PowerPoint. Um, I might need to up my game!
Top effort to be fair! He must have always been pretty financially responsible to even suggest doing something like that, sure they can have a laugh about it and not take each other too seriously.
Communication goes a long way.
Amen on that last one.