I’m all about efficiency. I’m always looking for things that can simply my life and save me both time and money. One thing that I utilize everyday is my Moleskine notebook. I don’t know when they got so popular, but Moleskin now has many varieties in their product line to suit everyone’s needs. I have a small ruled notebook which I use as a daily to-do list.

I’ve carried a PDA before (Sony Clie), but there’s something about pen and paper that digital media just can’t replicate. Plus you’ll never have batteries that die on you.

There’s tons of ways you can use a Moleskine to organize your life. In fact people on the web have created a number of systems to get organized. But to be honest, its a little too complicated for me. I’d rather use my notebook from cover to cover, one page at a time.

So, this is how I use my Moleskine:
I basically use it as a very long to-do list. Out of 192 pages, I probably have about 40 pages filled with things to do. I draw a box on the very left side and write down the task I need to do. As I finish each task, they get crossed off. So when I open my notebook, its very easy for me to see what tasks I still need to take care of. I think my short-term memory has been slipping since college. I can no longer remember all the things I need to do during the day. I always end up forgetting something. But with my Moleskine, as soon as I remember to do something I write it down and I can forget about it.
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| [x] Write a post about moleskines
| [ ] Go deposit check at ATM
| [x] Vacuum apartment
| [ ] Finish tax return on TurboTax
| [ ] Move money over to HSBC account
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How do married couples keep track of their spendings? How do they track their net worth each month? Although I’m not getting married until May 2007, I decided to tackle this question during my winter break. My fiancée and I have talked about finances and budgeting and we agreed that I’d handle all financial matters once we got married. I have a personal budget but my goal was to create a combined budget for the two of us for 2007. To do this I first needed to have a good idea of both of our spending habits. I already keep track of my own spendings, but I needed to know the spending habits of my fiancée. Our spending habits of 2006 would become the basis for our combined budget for 2007. So during my winter break I went through all her 2006 bank statements and credit card statements and logged her spendings (this took me about 5 hours, yikes!). I came up with totals using an Excel spreadsheet and got a good idea of how much she spends in various categories. I wasn’t surprised to find out her spendings on coffee and clothes were higher than mine. I was surprised to find out that her spendings on eating out equaled mine. I always thought she ate out less then I did, but I guess she tends to spend more each time she eats out. Both of us need to learn to cut-down on this once we get married by cooking and packing lunch for work.

After comparing both of our spending habits, my fiancée and I sat down and reviewed our 2006 finances and then talked about what we’d like to see for 2007. Our wedding will be our largest expense for 2007, so any extra spendings we can reduce will be helpful. We both feel we spend too much money in areas of coffee, clothing, and eating out. We’ve reduced our allowed budget in each of those categories and will strive to stick to it during this new year. Now instead of tracking my spendings each week, I’ll be tracking both of our spendings, making sure that we are on track.

All this may seem tedious or boring but keeping a budget and tracking your spendings is absolutely crucial for getting a handle on your families’ finances. Going through this exercise will also reveal where your money is actually going. Since my fiancée had never consistently tracked her spendings, she was actually surprised to find out how much she spends on coffee each month. It has given her motivation to be a little more cautious with the “latte factor“. Read my post on “Keeping Track of Your Spendings” if you need help estimating how much money you spend each year. This will help you create a budget.

Here’s a glimpse of our budget for 2007:

Over at MyMoneyBlog, Jonathan encourages his readers to setup a 6-month financial goal to strive for from now up until May. Leave a comment at this post and you will recieve some sort of prize at the end of the six months.

Both my fiancée and I are trying to save $10,000 for our upcoming wedding in the end of May. We figure that $20,000 will be a good budget to work with to cover all our expenses. We have a preliminary budget that keeps us under $20,000 but just in case of any other expenses come up I’ve planned to save $12,000 instead of $10,000.

November 2006 = $5,700
May 2007 = $12,000 (So $6,300 more to go in six months.)

I just finished listening to an interview of Larry Burkett on Focus on the Family and it was very inspiring. Take a listen to today’s broadcast. According to Burkett, 80% of college grads don’t know what their career should be. Many people get into careers where they might be proficient in but feel no sense of fulfillment or enjoyment. Is that you? Personally I know many college friends who dislike their job / career but are continuing to work simply for financial reasons. I also know a few college friends who have quit their job and are now pursuing a different field or vocation. Especially for Asian Americans, parents push their kids so hard to become Doctors, Lawyers, Engineers, etc. Its sad to find out one day in the middle of your career that this really wasn’t what you wanted to do. During my 2.5 year stint as an engineer I’ve been realizing that I get the greatest sense of purpose when I am interacting and engaging people, and not so much when I’m sitting in front of a computer and playing with numbers. I’m learning a lot here and think that one day I’ll make a pretty decent engineer but in the back of my mind there is a yearning to explore other possibilities while I’m still young. These past few months I’ve been thinking a lot about becoming a teacher or doing something with languages. I have a friend who teaches ESL at a community college and I think the idea of teaching students and being in a cross-cultural setting is fascinating. I think I could start taking night classes at first and test the waters to see if I’d like it or not. Of course I’d have to start saving money for more schooling =Þ.