photo credit: DesignByRaul

Remember when I said that I was going to track every penny we spend? Well that didn’t happen.  So I came up with this fantastic idea that for the month of March I’m going to publicly display on my blog every penny we spend.  If that doesn’t help keep me accountable, I don’t know what will.

I am a little nervous to show everyone just how much money we’re spending, but I think it will be a good exercise.  I’ll be able to see where I need to cut back and view exactly where our money goes.  It will be easy to track the debit card purchases, but I’ll have to make sure that if we use any cash that I document that as well.
Here’s my spreadsheet:

I’m hoping that this is a beneficial exercise!  If you’re interested in joining, I’d love to have some support.

Would you publicly share every penny you spend?  Is that too embarrassing?

One of the goals that we failed from 2009 was paying additional principal on our mortgage. We had set a goal to make one month’s mortgage payment as an extra payment straight towards principal. I think I have a valid reason- we were focused on paying off our student loan, as well as saving more money in our emergency fund and contributing to my 401k. While I think that excuses are like armpits (everyone has one and they all stink!), I’m sticking with mine.

But at the same point, I could have made an attempt to pay even a little bit extra on the mortgage and didn’t.  It’s just that I can’t bring myself to make extra principal payments on our mortgage.  Here’s why: when I make that extra principal payment, I don’t see a huge dent in the outstanding balance.  It’s almost like it makes no difference.  I also would rather take that money and put it into a savings account.  Even though we have a fully funded emergency fund (I think), I still would rather have that cash on hand in the event of a crisis than in the equity of my home.

Then I start to think about how I’d like to move eventually, so I don’t think we’ll be in this house for 30 years anyway and if I make those extra payments the money is kinda gone.

I don’t know if these thoughts are totally bass ackwards or not.  It’s what makes the most sense to me right now.  Save the money.  I can always put additional on the principal later.

Do you think I should suck it up and just make some extra principal payments on my mortgage?  Or are my thoughts valid?

This post was included in the Carnival of Personal Finance at Darwin’s Finance