Your Finance Tracker

I spent $5000 going out to eat in 2004. I was in college. I wasn't paying any rent. My only bills were my car and my cell phone, but I still managed to spend over $400 a month going out eat while I lived at home with the best cook I'd ever known, my father. I didn't have anything in savings, nothing in a 401k or in the stock market. I had nothing to my name besides a terribly ugly blue 5 year old Nissan, yet my spending habits were that of one of the rich and famous.

2005 wasn't much better. My father decided that I wasn't saving enough money so he looked at my bank account and saw that I was on track to spend a similar amount on going out to eat and decided to start charging me rent. I had gained 20 pounds by that point.

I desperately wanted a new computer, so I did my research and applied for a credit card. Getting approved for a Credit Card with a $3000 limit and 0% APR for a year seemed fantastic to me. I would buy a computer for roughly $1000 and then pay it off as quickly as possible to avoid all the interest charges. Needless to say, that did not happen.

After I was the victim to a terrible identity theft scam which left me in debt to my dad and his girlfriend, and had maxed out my credit card, I decided it was time for a change. I was in school for finance, and I was really good at helping other people with their own money, so I should be able to help myself out with my finances.

That didn't work out very well for me. They raised my limit to $4,000 and that was so maxed out, and so I opened two more credit cards which I then maxed out. I made a sporadic impulsive decision that I was going to move in with my girlfriend in early 2008 and I did so with no money saved, and $4,950 in credit card debt.

My bills went up. I felt lost. I had the education necessary to get myself out of debt and I knew exactly what to do, but I just didn't do any of it. Meanwhile, my girlfriend was building up a lot of credit card debt as well. After months of agonizing over my situation and feeling lost about paying off my credit cards, my father started in on me about paying him back too.

Finally, I decided to act in April 2009. I did some research. I bought quicken and went to all the budgeting websites. I downloaded all of the google and Microsoft budgeting templates. I bought a program from youneedabudget.com so I could enter in all my spending and view the pretty graphs of how much I'm overspending while still working at my retail job from years earlier. None of these things worked the way I wanted them, although I acknowledge that they are awesome tools.

I liked Mint.com, but I wanted someone who could be there to offer assistance if I needed help fixing something. I wanted a personalized budget experience. None of these places offered what I wanted. It was then on a rainy Monday afternoon in April that I decided to make my own ridiculously detailed budget on Microsoft excel. After about a month of testing it out and changing some things around that I was finally happy with the budget I had needed for five years.

Six months later, I was still following the budget and aside from an unforeseen medical expense, I was following it. I had an emergency fund for the first time in my adult life. Instead of getting overdraft charges two or three times a year like I was used to, my bank account balance started to never go below $200. Everything was great and my two small credit cards were paid off. My large credit card still had a year to go, but I was all set.
In December of last year, my girlfriend freaked out (probably because of Christmas and her credit card spending) and I offered to help. I made her a spreadsheet, and as I was talking about it to some of my friends at work, they asked me to help them. I was doing something I loved while helping people. I loved it. It was then that I decided that I could offer personalized budgeting services over the internet and help lots of other people in this down economy create a budget for themselves.

And thus, yourfinancetracker was born. I am here, available, and I want to help you get out of debt, create a budget, or maximize your savings. If you have any questions, email me or contact me

AIM: YFTPatrick
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