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My uncle showed me his old checkbook register from 1998
We were cleaning out his garage in Tacoma last summer and he pulled out a shoebox full of old papers. Right on top was this little blue booklet, his check register. He flipped it open and showed me a page from October 1998. Every single coffee, tank of gas, and grocery run was written down by hand, with the balance calculated after each one. He said, 'Back then, you had to know what you had before you spent it, or the check would bounce.' It was so simple, just pen and paper, but he knew where every dollar went. It made me think about how easy it is now with apps that do it all for you. I started writing my top three expenses by hand each week after that. Has anyone else gone back to a simpler tracking method?
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barbara_grant1mo ago
That physical act of writing probably made the spending feel more real. Typing into an app is too easy to ignore. The pen makes you slow down and own each number.
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daniel51910d ago
My buddy found his dad's old ledger and it was like @barbara_grant said, every coffee had its own guilty line.
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