I’m having trouble coming up with some snowflakes! I know I’m supposed to take snowflakes from anywhere, from budget shortfalls to money found on the street. Unfortunately, I’m not really finding any money on the street. I have been looking though. I almost ran into a pole on the sidewalk because I thought I saw a quarter. I’ve got a Crown Royal bag going as a coin collector, so will eventually use that as a snowflake once the change counts up to a decent payment. As for the budget shortfalls, I don’t really have any. Of course, I don’t have a budget either, so I can’t really say much about not spending less than I budgeted!
I think a big part of that is how I don’t have my finances organized to utilize the snowflake method. I can’t be really sure where I have a budget shortfall, if I don’t have an obvious budget line. So, my first step to get on the snowflake train is to get my finances organized and budgeted in a killer spreadsheet. I’ve taken my old checkbook spreadsheet, and really spent some time spiffing it up. I’ve added all the accounts that I have, and really tried to organize every bit of information I had available to me. Then, I took my old budget spreadsheet, which was nothing more than when bills were due, and turned that into more of a budgeting sheet. This sheet will be where I can spot my shortfalls and possible snowflakes. Of course, I’m still working on the whole sheet.
What I’m going to do is give myself a deadline of this weekend to get a good first draft of my spreadsheet going. Then, I’m going to post it up here on the website to make it available to others. My hope is that I will get some feedback, and I will be able to improve my spreadsheet to be perfect for my future budgeting needs. I’ve put some good work into this, so I’m at least a little confident in putting it on the site. Of course, I will have it tailered to my way of doing things, so it might be hard to explain how to use or not easy to follow at first. I think that’s what I need to work.
Oh well, at least I’m taking another step!

Filed under: budget, finance, snowflake