I know people who procrastinate starting to save or pay down debt because they believe there is no way they will get out of debt or save enough to be financially independent. Its like they feel like there is no way to chip away at the task because completing it seems so daunting. The task seems so great or that saving a couple thousand dollars a year seems so difficult yet insignificant in the big scheme of things, that they simply don't get engaged with their own finances. We have found that charting our progress is a great motivator for us as it shows progress right away. Yep, you're going to have to learn some basic spreadsheet skills, but you wont need an engineering degree here... just a friend with entry level Excel should be enough. If this simple Geologist can figure it out, you can too. Charting your progress lays out in visual form where we are, and what our financial trend is. From an investment standpoint, we are mainly focused on our assets cash-flow and not its market value, so this makes it super easy to keep track of because we don't need to track our portfolio's current value, but simply the dividend income. This eliminates the hand-wringing that happens when the market corrects and the TV talking heads are all doom and gloom. Seeing our investment cash-flow go up and our debt go down month to month or year to year reinforces visually that we are on the right track. It also encourages us to steepen the slope by adding additional funds and boost our progress.
I used to make projection forecasts where I would make assumptions about how much we could save etc into the future... but I stopped doing that because I almost felt like we had accomplished something when really all I was doing was just fiddling with numbers in a spreadsheet. Plotting month to month in real time as you do it is proof of accomplishment. It doesn't take all that much time once you get the spreadsheet set up and running. Just open it up on the same day every month (we use the first of each month) and tally up any increases/decreases from the previous month. Post the charts on the fridge so there is a constant reminder that you are going in the right direction. You can also see where you fell off the wagon a month here or there...
Another nice thing about charting your progress is that after you've been doing it for 4-5 years you can see how far you've come by doing look-backs. Assuming that you stay on track and have good financial habits, you will also see the power of compounding right before your eyes because the slope of the lines will naturally steepen as exponential growth takes effect from year to year. You can also feel momentum building, that will act as further motivation and encouragement for you to keep on saving/investing/paying down debt.... and to us that feels pretty darn good.
So... go and embrace your inner engineer and break out the spreadsheets. Not just for nerdy math and science geeks anymore.
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