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Tracking

February 11, 2019

As you set goals for the new year you want to make sure you are tracking all of your results on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. This may seem like a waste of time, but it is very important to know where you are on your journey.

Not only will you know what is happening in your life, you will better understand how much is being spent or how many calories or whatever you are tracking so that you will know if you are doing a good job or not.

Back in about 2014 I started to ride my bike a little more. I found an app called Strava. I thought if I want to really get better then I better start tracking what I am doing.

There was a little 8 mile route from my house, through the neighborhood and up a few little hills and back to the house. I remember the first time that I did it I was exhausted. The hills were at the end of the route. I saw that the app had segments that it timed for me automatically.

It used to be my little challenge every so often to see how I was doing with my riding. I would see if I could beat my time for the hills. It was just a good way to let me know if I was keeping up with my riding. When I had a really high time, I would have to focus more or do some other kind of training to get myself back on track.

Its kinda the same thing with my weight. About the same time that I found Strava, I started to really look at my weight. Strava helps with tracking your walks, bike rides, and your journeys.  I have never really been a heavy person. I weighed about 120 pounds when I graduated from high school. After life happened I settled into my 170 or maybe 180 weight.

My mid to late 40s I had swelled to about 185 pounds. I needed to get a little leaner. The bicycle was going to be my magic pill. All I had to do was keep track of my bike riding and make sure that I did so many miles per week. Well, things did not really happen like that.

I would ride, but I would also eat a bunch more because I expended a bunch of energy. That did not really help at all. I was exercising more, but eating more. Net zero sum.

The solution was that I was going to weigh myself every morning. And that is just what I did, and still do today. I wake up, go pee and then weigh myself. Some people say that is completely the wrong approach. Maybe, maybe not. It works for me.

These days I am at about 168 to 170 pounds and holding steady. As I ride more miles this spring, I am sure that I will be in the mid to low 160s. I have to track my weight everyday so that I can see a pattern of increases or decreases pretty quickly.

As I write this, the superbowl finished a few hours ago. We had some family over to our house. We ate way too much and had a couple of drinks. I know that I will be a pound or two over what I would normally weigh. Thats ok. I know what I did and will see the results in the morning.

I try not to get too obsessed about things because if they dont go exactly the way you want, you tend to get upset and lose faith in yourself. Too many beefy ribs, corns, and a couple of margaritas were only part of my superbowl feast. Now that I think about it, I will probably be at about 173 in the morning.

That just means that I will have to make small adjustments to tomorrow and the next day. I will see that number come back down over the next few days. This is all just keeping track of what is important and making small adjustments to what you have to do to stay on track.

Over the years, I have talked with people about their debt, net worth and other financial issues in their lives. What has always astonished me the most was that most people do NOT track their spending.

If you want to increase your net worth, get out of debt or just get in better financial health, you HAVE TO track your spending. A few years ago I tracked my spending for a month. I was just blown away at how much I spent. Remember, I am the Frugal Real Estate Guy, I dont spend a bunch of money, right?? Well…

I realized that I was spending a crap load of money on eating out. Burger King, McDonalds, Bill Miller BBQ or some type of fast food was my go to without even thinking. I quickly realized that I ate fast food about 5 times a week for lunch. My wife and I would go out to eat dinner about 5 times per week also. The only meal that I almost always ate at home was breakfast, the cheapest meal of the day.

This kinda went hand in hand with my bicycling and weight loss or lack thereof. How was I going to lose weight eating Whoppers so much. It was definitely not going to happen. Keeping track of my expenses helped me realize not only my huge expense on eating out, but got me to eat healthier. All of this in turn helped me bring my weight down along with my cholesterol.

When you write down everything that you eat and keep track of the total calories, fat grams, carb grams that you are eating, you will realize how everything else is getting affected. You become more aware when you are tracking.

I highly recommend that whatever area that you are having trouble with, track it. If you are in big time debt, track your spending. If you are a little fatty, track what you are eating. I HOPE the results will scare the crap out of you. That is what it will take to get you to change your ways. I can tell you it did for me.

When you start tracking you will have a better understanding of what you are doing. You can then focus on why you are doing what you are doing. Why am I spending so much money on going out to eat? I drive around a bunch and I am always in my car. Solution? Take lunch with me. I fix a sandwich, some chips and a coffee type of container with water or tea or whatever.

I can tell you that I love sweets. Chocolate, cake, cookies, or anything with sugar, I am there. Also when I was tracking my spending I realized how much sweets I bought. That month that I tracked I spent almost $80 on sweets. It was a slice of pie at a restaurant, some cookies, candy bars out the wazoo. OMG. Well no wonder my weight was up over 180.

I wish that I could say I went cold turkey and I never have bought a candy bar again. WRONG. It has taken time to cut back. I make little rules for myself until they become habit. No buying candies at the convenience store when putting gas. No slice of pie or brownie with lunch.

Nowadays I spend about $10-15 on a couple packages of cookies, a candy bar or two and a few sweets per month. I will only buy my sweets at the grocery store when we go grocery shopping. No more impulse buying. That is how most of the money was spent on sweets. It starts with that slice of pie with lunch. Its just one slice. But then it happens two or three times per week. The calories!!! The money!!! My Triglycerides!!!

When you track, you will see how good or bad you really are. You may be surprised at the results. If you are surprised, make the changes now. The only way to a better net worth is knowing where ALL of your income and expenses are coming from and where they are going.

Keep track and make some changes.