"...bhai, do you remember the password to my sheet?" I WhatsApped one of my best friends recently.
I did my PG in 2009 and began saving/investing. I've always been an Excel nerd, and even today, the first thing I open when I want to track or list something is an Excel. So one fine day in 2009, I right-clicked on my laptop, created a new Excel file, and named it "Balance Sheet" (don’t ask me why). From that point on, I made it a habit to update it on the 1st of every month. I started with two sheets in the workbook: Income & Expenses.
Income sheet tracks my realized income each month, primarily consisting of my salary and the realized returns or losses from my investments & trading during the prior month.
Expense sheet includes a column for credit card bill amts (to track cc spends) and another for all other bank debits. Summing these gives me my total expenses for the month. A simple formula then calculates the % of savings for the month by linking it to the net income.
Later on, I added a sheet for insurance—both health & life. Did you know that if you have a PF account, you're automatically covered for life insurance through the EPFO? It’s called EDLI. Look it up. Now, if you didn’t know that, imagine the plight of your family. So, this sheet contains all policy numbers, premium dates, amounts and coverage specifics.
I follow a routine I call the "monthly drill." I execute it on the 1st of every month. I settle my CC bills (all billing dates set for 20th), rent, all the domestic staff salaries (via GPay, which serves as a log for future—no cash) and other monthly bills. I withdraw a small amount of cash (typically need no more than 4-5k a month, as all my transactions are digital). The day isn’t complete until I update the balance sheet. I log my expenses, update all income entries, and review the % of savings for the month. Then, I compare it to the savings of the prior month, quarter, and year to check for any overspending or undersaving, which helps me make course corrections for the months ahead.
The final ritual of my monthly drill is to email the updated balance sheet to myself on Gmail. The sheet is password-protected, and the password is known to my family and two close friends. Although my friends don’t have access to the Excel or my email, they will share the password with my family in case they forget or can’t find it. In all likelihood, the sheet will always be updated through the previous month.
The purpose of this post isn’t to brag, but to encourage those of you who haven’t yet started a similar practice that fits your style & needs. A sheet like this not only helps you track your wealth & savings rates, but it can also serve as a valuable resource for your family—a ready reckoner—when the inevitable happens.
It only takes about an hour, but isn’t that less than the average time most of us spend scrolling through social media each day? This weekend could be the perfect time to start.
Happy tracking!
