Using a Financial Road Map: Tracking your Personal Spending

I was going through the contents of the glove box of our family vehicle the other day.  There—how quaint! —was a road map.  It was very worn, tattered in fact, evidence of the number of family trips we made over the years.  I spent a few minutes unfolding it and then tracing out the highways and side roads we followed.  Lots of miles!  Many good memories.  I then tried to fold it back up again and failing miserably tossed it in the recycle.

I am among those delighted with the advances in personal navigation.  I think maps are great, though, because they show so much detail of the land and geography.  Yes, I know that is nerdy but so I am.

That said I am among the converted when it comes to reliance on GPS.  How did we ever get along without it? 

I recall my first maps app, and of course there was a learning curve. I recall once setting it to follow the shortest route instead of fastest and wound up with a rather extended drive (albeit beautiful) from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania to Pittsburgh.  I recall the beauty of driving through the mountains but we had to wake the kids when we finally arrived at our hotel much later than planned.  So it goes.

Yet the law of unintended consequences does not stop because of the essential usefulness of technology. Have you noticed lately that in addition to distractions from driving while texting there seems to be an increase in distractions caused by driving by GPS?

No less than three times this last week drivers ahead of me have gone from the left turn lane, all the way to the right (or vice versa), across several lanes of traffic, basically ignoring oncoming traffic.  Sometimes I have noticed drivers who stop in the middle of the street looking about confused and then looking back to their GPS or phone.  A friend of mine swears one of their employees drove onto a lake (it was winter and it was frozen) because the dang thing told him to. 

I know the feeling.  “Greta Google” as I call the voice on “Google Maps” is commanding and I admit to feeling that momentary confusion as ‘she’ gives me a command that does not exactly compute.

But I digress.

All this is leading up to a question as to whether or not you track your spending each month or like most Americans you just sort of wing it without a road map?

I don’t have a recommended roadmap for you, but there are all sorts of tools and apps available to help budget and track your expenses.  I know I use one and find it very helpful in keeping track of where our hard-earned money goes.

If you do track your expenses, how do you fare compared to an ‘average’ American family?

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports this is how an average American’s spending breaks down:

  • Average Household Income (pretax):                        $74,664
  • Average Annual Expenditures:                                    $57,311                
    • Housing:                                                                $18,186                                         32.9%
    • Transportation:                                                    $ 9,049                                          15.8%
    • Food:                                                                      $ 7,203                                           12.6%
    • Personal insurance and Pensions:                   $ 6,831                                            11.9%
    • Healthcare:                                                           $ 4,612                                             8.1%
    • Entertainment:                                                    $ 2,913                                             5.1%
    • Cash contributions:                                            $ 2,081                                             3.6%
    • Apparel and Service:                                          $ 1,803                                             3.1%
    • All other expenditures:                                     $ 3,933                                             6.9%

An article posted on CNBC by Kathleen Elkins points out that only 1 in 3 Americans track their spending.  She also points out that we spend 61% of our money on the top three categories: housing, transportation and food. 

Does keeping track of spending help manage our finances better?  According to Elkins, keeping track of, and minimizing, spending, especially in the top three categories, can pay big dividends in the future. She cites one couple who built a $1 million portfolio by age 40 and a 26-year-old who banked $150,000 by age 24.  That is real money!

Now, not all of us can do this in quite the same way but having a financial road map can certainly smooth the road a bit and help keep us off the rocky back roads of life.   

A. Alliance Collection Agency, Inc. is a full service, licensed accounts receivable management and debt collection agency providing highly effective, customized one on one management and recovery solutions for our business partners.  Founded in northern Illinois in 2005, we have been proudly improving the bottom-line on behalf of our business partners in and around Chicagoland for over 12 years.

 

 

The Power of Politeness

As I get older, I’ve noticed that politeness has gone out the window.   As children we were taught manners and my husband and I carried on that tradition when we raised our own kids. Nothing unusual or special about that, right? But as our kids, especially our son, who is now in his early 30’s, got older, I can’t tell you how many times he’s told us about people who’ve remarked on his politeness.  Something as simple as holding a door open for the person behind him, or saying may I please  when ordering at a restaurant has had enough impact on friends and strangers they’ve actually commented on his politeness.  When did showing consideration for others become the exception rather than the rule? When did treating people rudely become cool?

It’s sad to know that TV personalities like Simon Cowell made careers and their TV shows popular by treating people horribly.  I also think social media is part of the problem. We spend way too much time staring at screens and not enough time engaging with each other. It is way easier to be rude to someone when they aren’t’ in front of you. Then after being inundated relentlessly with rude behavior we’ve become desensitized to it. I consider myself to be online fairly often, but my time is a drop in the bucket compared to the generations of people younger than me.

The other day I was out walking my dog and I came across a large sign posted in a yard.  Evidently dogs have been relieving themselves in this yard and the pet owners haven’t stopped to pick up the waste.  This understandably upset the homeowner. But their reaction to post a long rant IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS to yell at everyone who walks past their yard seems to miss the mark in my estimation.  Do they really think verbal abuse is going to get people to pick up after their dogs?  I haven’t been past that yard since I saw the sign, but honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if their snarky approach backfired on them. Haven’t they heard: what goes around comes around?

The thing is, people want and need to be treated nicely.  We all know that! This is why politeness is so powerful.  Luckily, like most things in life there is a yin and yang, a lightness to the darkness, and happily a politeness to the rudeness. This pertains to the media as well.  People like Mike Rowe and Ellen DeGeneres are trying to move  the needle in the right direction by shining a light on (and rewarding) people who are not only considerate and polite, but who are taking kindness to the next level. I applaud their efforts!

At  A. Alliance we believe in the power of politeness. And how we treat people (consumers, clients and each other) is part of our mission statement  Everyone deserves to be treated with respect and consideration.  That’s how connections are made.  Isn’t that what we all want, to connect with others?

A. Alliance Collection Agency, Inc. is a full service, licensed accounts receivable management and debt collection agency providing highly effective, customized one on one management and recovery solutions for our business partners.  Founded in northern Illinois in 2005, we have been proudly improving the bottom line on behalf of our business partners in and around Chicagoland for over 12 years.


Terrorism by Technology: “What Hath God Wrought?”

“What Hath God Wrought?”  That message was sent to Samuel F.B. Morse in 1844 by his assistant using his “Morse” code, and thus inaugurating the new, state of the art, Baltimore to Washington telegraph system. I wonder if he is spinning about in his grave realizing the understatement that message represents today?

What strikes me is how even then how quickly people began to find ways to ‘hack’ this new system.  That is what we would call it today I would think.

When taking a longer view, I can’t think of an example where a development in the storage or transmission of information has not been just as quickly followed by new methods to intercept it, steal it, profit from it, or acquire it for other uses which it was not intended. 

The advent of more sophisticated technology has simply accelerated not only the flow of data but the sophistication of those bent on intercepting it.

My friend and colleague Lisa Brammer wrote a blog for us a few weeks ago regarding her personal experience with the Equifax data hack.  To me it is staggering that more than half the population of the United States had their personal information stolen and it took weeks before the theft was reported.  Her experience underlines how ill prepared so many companies are to not only deal with a breach but then to take appropriate responsibility for the consequences.

Truly, though, it is not what God wrought but what we have indeed wrought upon ourselves.

A case in point in my own experience tells a similar tale.  Just last week I received an email from the manufacturer of our home router telling me that a critical security update for the router firmware was available.  The message conveyed a great sense of urgency to download the firmware update.

Now, I am fully aware that one of the oldest tricks hackers use is fake email disguised to look like it is from a trusted provider.  In my head I know better, but I reacted emotionally and blindly followed the instructions to log into my router to get the update.   Instead I got nothing.  The page said I was not even connected to the internet, but of course I was.

I set it aside for a bit, but then it hit me I may have been directed to a fake site which then captured the login information for my router.  I checked the e mail again, its links, and then the manufacturers website and ultimately found it was legit.

Even then, when I did get it to download, it did not install correctly.  It promptly locked up my router, disconnected the internet and caused general panic. 

What were they thinking in communicating such an important update in this way?  What to do now? 

I took a chance and rebooted the router and—voila!—it magically worked.  The firmware was installed and all was good, heart palpitations aside.  I suspect I will find another vendor when I need to replace this router.  Why they used this method to communicate such important information is beyond me. 

So, what is the point here?

First, the fact is that despite our best attempts to thwart this insidious menace, theft will be always be with us regardless of advances in security and new technologies.  New threats, new methods of attack, will come at us all every day. 

Second, to protect ourselves we need to be ever vigilant, both in our personal and professional dealings with internet and data security.

Finally, know that we are humans too. We have personally felt the pain of data breaches as much as the next person.  We know our valued clients have placed their trust in us.  We endeavor to stay one step ahead of the next threat and employ the latest, state of the art technology to keep our data safe. We are proud to say that we have yet to experience a successful breach, even though, like just about every company, we frequently come under attack.  Knowing how critical data security is to our own lives, we apply that tenacity to ensuring our clients are protected as well. 

A. Alliance Collection Agency, Inc. is a full service, licensed accounts receivable management and debt collection agency providing highly effective, customized one on one management and recovery solutions for our business partners.  Founded in northern Illinois in 2005, we have been proudly improving the bottom-line on behalf of our business partners in and around Chicagoland for over 12 years.