Why I Changed My Money Check-In Strategy

Here we are, already half-way through November. We are getting close to the end of 2023, my friends! Pretty soon, it will be time to do some year-end reflection and goal-setting for 2024.

Before that though, we still have to close out 2023.

At the beginning of this year, I decided to switch up the way I do my money check-ins with myself. Throughout 2023, I’ve experimented with going from checking in on my money and my financial independence (FI) numbers on a monthly basis to a quarterly one. Today on the blog, I’m sharing why I made the change, how it’s been going this year, and what I want to do differently next year. Hopefully it will inspire you to start thinking about your own money check-in process and see if there’s anything you want to switch up in 2024!

For as long as I can remember, as I started on my personal finance journey, I checked in on my money on a monthly basis. To do this, I used to use Personal Capital (now Empower), an app that lets you input all your financial data, and it will track your money for you. It was super easy to use (which I liked). Once a month, a reminder would go off on my phone (that I set up myself), and I would simply open up the app and check in on my numbers. How was everything looking? Was my money up or down? It was a basic process, and I usually felt one of 2 ways after: excited that my money was up, or bummed that it was down. That was it. At that time, checking on my money wasn’t a very active or mindful process… 

When I set my goals last year, for 2023, I reflected on the fact that I didn’t love my money check-in strategy. It didn’t feel very good to me. Plus, with the Personal Capital app being so easy to use, I found myself checking in on my money more often than once a month. Whenever I was bored, I would mindlessly open up the app. I’d get lost in watching my money go up and down. I noticed I didn’t feel very happy or content when I did my money checks, or when I even just glanced at my numbers. I couldn’t help but just be obsessed in thinking about the future, wondering when my money would hit that magic FI number.

So, for 2023, I decided to switch things up. I decided to experiment with a new method for doing my money check-ins. 

The first step I decided on was to stop using Empower/Personal Capital. This was an easy transition because I had been having some issues with some of my accounts updating on the app. This had been frustrating me for awhile, so I knew it wouldn’t be the end of the world to stop using the app. I wanted to start the process of switching up my routine with an easy step, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity.

The second step was then to figure out how I was going to track my money instead, now that I wouldn’t be using the app anymore.

I settled on a simple spreadsheet – a Google Sheet to be exact. 

I had read from Brad in one of the Choose FI newsletters about his check-in strategy, specifically for his net worth, and it was with the use of a simple spreadsheet. That gave me the idea. I had a moment where I thought “why aren’t I using this same method?” It was so simple, anyone could do it. Mr. Dink and I already use spreadsheets in our household to track our spending/expenses, so this seemed like another relatively easy transition. 

With 2 steps down, I then needed to decide how I was actually going to track my money. What exact process I was going to use, and how often.

As far as timing, I decided that once a quarter, or every 3 months, I would update my spreadsheet. I wanted to see how a quarterly schedule felt compared with a monthly one.

Once again, I used Brad’s strategy from the Choose FI article above as the foundation. It was too simple not to try. But I did make a few tweaks for my own situation and preferences. If you’re considering doing something similar, I highly recommend you do the same! After all, personal finance is just that: personal.

Let’s take a look at my actual process. For me, I use 2 tabs in my spreadsheet.

Net worth

The first tab is labeled net worth. This is where I add up the balances of all my accounts, both investment accounts and traditional bank/checking/high-yield savings accounts, and subtract any debts like credit cards or student loans. This gives me an overall picture of the money in my life. (Note: I do not include our house in my net worth calculations; just a personal preference).

Financial independence

The second tab in my spreadsheet is labeled financial independence. This is where I keep a rundown of all my FI numbers, as well as my quarterly totals of all my investment accounts.

Because of the way Mr. Dink and I manage our finances (in short, we keep separate bank accounts and have separate expenses that we pay), I keep track of FI numbers for both myself, as an individual, and as a couple.

FIRE single

First, I keep track of my FI numbers as if I were single, because of the way we manage our money. These numbers are based on the monthly/yearly expenses that only I cover. Because Mr. Dink and I meet regularly to go over our spending, I can update these numbers as needed.

I then use these expense numbers to calculate my FI numbers. The FI numbers I choose to keep track of are the traditional FIRE number (25x yearly expenses), Flamingo FI number (traditional FIRE number divided by 2), and Coast FI number (I use the calculator from The Fioneers with a 4% safe withdrawal rate and a 5% inflation-adjusted growth rate). To demonstrate, here’s an example of what these numbers could look like:

• Monthly expenses: $2330
• Annual expenses: $27,966
• Traditional FI number: $699,150
• Flamingo FI number: $349,575
• Coast FI number: $161,768

FIRE couple

For my FI numbers as part of my partnership with Mr. Dink, I do the same thing, except I use our combined spending numbers.

• Monthly expenses: $4058
• Annual expenses: $48,702
• Traditional FI number: $1,217,500
• Flamingo FI number: $608,775
• Coast FI number: $281,714

After I make sure the FI numbers are up-to-date based on our recent expense numbers, I then add up the total of all my investment accounts for the quarter.

I can then take that total investment number and compare it with my FI numbers, viewing my progress towards different stages of FI.

And there you have it – my quarterly money check-in strategy! Simple? I think so!

How it’s been going

The biggest difference I’ve noticed in shifting from checking my money (without an app) monthly to checking it quarterly has been in terms of my mindset. For starters,

I think about my money less often

This was one of the biggest reasons I wanted to make this shift. I noticed that I was not only checking but thinking about my money all the time, and I wanted that to stop. I can officially say that changing up my money check-in strategy has helped tremendously with this. Before, I was mindlessly checking on my money all the time via apps like Personal Capital/Empower. Now, I think about my money so much less often.

I know I’m on the right track, heading in a positive direction as far as my mindset, because after I do my check-in, I forget about it. However, this wasn’t an instantaneous change. When I first started checking my money this way, I was definitely tempted to check-in more often. But I resisted, and eventually it got easier and easier, to the point where I wasn’t even thinking about it.

Now, I’m focusing more on living my life than on checking my money. This has made all the difference in my mental happiness and well-being when it comes to my money.

Breaking down my FI numbers feels less daunting and more empowering

Before I started checking my money quarterly, even though I had already embraced more of a slow FI lifestyle, I still focused mainly on my traditional FI number when I would check-in on my money. This felt daunting, because I am still a ways away from traditional FI. As I mentioned above, my check-in process also wasn’t actionable. I knew I’d get to traditional FI someday, but it was difficult to see the progress I was making, and it caused me to get stuck when I thought about lifestyle design.

Thinking about my progress toward Coast and Flamingo FI in addition to just traditional FI has been great for my money mindset.

For starters, it’s been incredibly empowering and energizing to see that I have already hit Coast FI, even though traditional FI still feels like I distant dream. When I was only considering traditional FI in my money check-ins, it was easy to stay in the grind, to keep running on the hamster wheel. I needed to get to traditional FI, after all.

But thinking about milestones along the way has been instrumental in my lifestyle design process. Knowing that I can take my foot off the gas a bit, because I’ve already saved so much towards my goals, has been a game changer. Taking a risk based on something I want, like downshifting to part-time work, feels a lot less daunting and a lot more doable now that I’ve started thinking about my savings as progress toward FI, not just with FI as the end goal.

And this gets even better when I think about our FI numbers as a couple. Knowing that I am just one person in a team of 2, I like seeing where my money stacks up not only as an individual but also as a couple.

For example, I may not have made it to Flamingo FI based on my money alone, but I can see from my spreadsheet, using only my money that I’ve invested, that I have hit our Coast FI number as a couple. This has shifted my mindset immensely, because it means that if I didn’t contribute another dollar toward my investments, I would have enough money at traditional retirement age (65) to cover both myself and my husband’s current yearly spending. For me, that is incredibly empowering and exciting to think about. It is something that I can keep in mind, and that plays a major role, when we make big money decisions or think about big lifestyle changes.

Breaking down my FI numbers as I described above helps me celebrate smaller wins. Helps me see the possibilities. Helps me not get stuck on the hamster wheel. Helps me feel better about downshifting sooner.

Breaking down my FI numbers acts as a buffer

As I’ve mentioned previously on the blog, I’m actually pretty risk averse when it comes to my money. This is probably due to my first money memory (spoiler alert: I watched my brother lose $20, our spending “fun” money for a week of vacation, out the car window). I lean much closer toward a scarcity mindset than to one of abundance.

I know I’m probably never going to be completely comfortable taking my foot off the gas. Or with making large purchases in alignment with my goals. Or with drawing down on my investments when the time comes.

But at the same time, because I know this about myself, I can build in buffers to my money check-in strategy.

For example, by only using my invested money to track my progress toward FI, I’m erring on the side of caution. It’s a basic and simple strategy, so it’s easy to implement, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. It gives a simple picture; one that doesn’t account for any of our side income we may make in the future, or the money we make from our AirBnB (yes, we finally have our attached apartment up and running! more to come in a future post), or what we may or may not get from social security, or from our parents when they pass on, or the value of our home. My strategy doesn’t even account for any of the money Mr. Dink has saved (although we manage our money/expenses as a team, he cares less about FI than I do, so I track the numbers on my own). It gives a simple picture, but it’s also a bit of an underestimation.

This built-in buffer provides an extra level of security, and it once again helps tremendously with my mindset. It makes downshifting not seem so scary. Especially because we are also flexible, and we can adapt to any situation life throws our way.

Some may not understand why I wouldn’t track every dollar, every scenario, but this is just what works for me. I like knowing that this isn’t the full picture, but it errs on the side of caution. My strategy gives me more peace of mind than anything else I’ve tried, and that’s what matters to me.

What I want to change for 2024

The main thing I want to change about my money check-in strategy in 2024 is to do a better job at reviewing my goals. This year, I had intended to review my goals during these quarterly check-ins. I think it may have only happened once.

It was easy enough to carve out 15 minutes to update my numbers, but reviewing my goals takes a lot longer, and I wasn’t great about making time for this.

Plus, I didn’t make it easy enough on myself. In the past, including for 2023, I have written my goals in my personal journal, amidst all my other entries. Thus, it can be hard to even find my goals in a pinch.

For 2024, I intend to start a journal specifically for goal setting (so simple right??). That way, I’ll have one place to go to when I do my goals and my quarterly reviews.

What I can say is that I have seen that my theme for 2023, prioritizing friends and family, has shone through as the top goal. It’s been front of mind all year, and my other more minor goals haven’t been as important. Beyond what I’ve already shared here on the blog, I just got back from a weekend of one-on-one time with my dad, and a divorce party of one of my good friends. It was a lot of driving, but I’m so glad I did it. Prioritizing my friends and family has been the highlight of the year.

In closing

The farther I go on my slow FI journey, the more I’m enjoying myself. I feel like I learn something new about myself every day. I’ve never felt more driven, but my drive has been for life outside of work, which is a surreal feeling for me. I’ve been able to design this slow FI life for myself by working to find as low-stress of a job with as high a pay as I can get. This has made it so I have the energy and mental capacity to focus on designing my life outside of work, while still saving and investing toward my FI goals.

I’ve never been more excited about an upcoming year. What about you?

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How has your year gone? What is your money strategy like? What changes, if any, do you want to make in 2024? I’d love to hear from you!