My neighbor's 30 year old spreadsheet made me ditch my budgeting app

Last Saturday my neighbor Mike saw me checking my phone app and laughed. He pulled out this ancient printed grid from 1994, all yellow and folded. He told me he still tracks every dollar by hand, same categories for 30 years. Said apps just make you feel busy without actually looking at where cash goes. It hit different because he retired at 55 on a warehouse salary. I spent Sunday copying his method into a notebook, just three columns: in, out, leftover. First week done, I already see my coffee habit eating 60 bucks a month. Has anyone else gone backwards to paper or am I the only one who fell for the app hype?

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jamief6726d ago

Apps just make you feel busy without actually looking at where cash goes" was exactly my excuse for having 4 finance apps and zero clue where my money went each month... paper somehow makes it real, like math you can't ignore. I tried going back to a ledger last year and lasted a week, but honestly the coffee math is brutal when you see it written down like that.

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