Honey!! where's my money !!?!!

This was my first question when I'd seen myself in a financial mess.
OfCoz! I knew there was nothing to be worried about, but it wasn't so easy either. My bank savings got eroded quicker than I thought. My pocket seemed getting empty too quickly and I'd find myself running to the ATM for getting more liquidity.All seemed going on the way it was ought to. But end of the day I always used to ask myself "where's my money going?".

Now was the time for myself to set and get prepared for a great financial turn. Or should I call it an operational turn (not exactly a financial one). I started seeking advices online. Many, I never understood. often I heard the terms 'saving', 'invetment', 'leveraging' and 'goals', 'emergencies' etc. So I had decided to get more help of 'HOW?' rather than 'What?'. This quest of saving money had found myself reading several blogs, many websites and posts, problems and solutions to different people world wide with different financial problems. But I always used to search myself and 'my problems' in them. It was difficult though.. But eventually i have learnt a few things about PERSONAL FINANCES MANAGEMENT.

Sounds too personal, yeah! it is. But what I really wanted to know is where is my money going? It was my first and the most important FACTOR in my 'Personal finace management'.

Now was a high time I needed to know the outflow of my money. So, started maintaining a small diary. I used to note down everything I spend in that diary. But end of the month, there was too many pages written and I could not make a gist of it at all. Then I started designating pages for the next month. Something like 'Daily Living', 'Food', 'Bills', 'Clothes', 'Transport'. Now that seems a little good. All i did was enter the date and amount in the appropriate page and total it up in the month end. It was then, I got a broader picture of whats actually going on with my finances.

It gave me an Idea. I have seen my spending habits and came to know that I spend say Rs.2000/- on dining out each month. or Rs.1800/- to fuel up my car. So I started keeping money exclusively for a purpose in my purse. Say I would keep 1700/- in one place and rubber-band it to know that its for dining out. So whenever I go out for dining, I would just open the envolope and see how much is left for the month.

It did help. So the first thing to a successfull 'Personal Finance Management' is the Envolope system. Go ahead, try it.. I'm sure it would be helpful in a way or two.

Comments are welcome.