#12hppofxmas Day 6 and RECOMMENDSDAY!

Thanks to Gene Luen Yang's big beautiful Dragon Hoops graphic novel, I'm well ahead of schedule on the 12hppofxmas. Even if it weren't for that graphic novel, I've still read 524 pages in the last five and a bit days. I have two books on the go that I'm hoping I can finish before the clock ticks over to January 1: Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons which I'm quite enjoying although I don't think I've read quite enough of the things she's lampooning to get the full effect, and Dogsbody by Diana Wynne Jones which is a children's novel that may or may not result in tears for me by the end.

Today I'm trying to make progress on (a) getting my end of year reading summary post nearly done, (b) doing some housecleaning prior to my return to work, (c) setting goals and so on for the new year, (d) reading the aforementioned books that I have approximately 36 hours left to finish. Plus I have an online crafting meet up tonight.

It's also recommendsday, which means I should have something to recommend to you and my goodness it's difficult to come up with recommendations in the midst of the holiday season.

So, speaking of the goal setting for the new year, something that I've been doing very successfully for the past seven years or so is tracking my spending and maintaining a personal budget system. This is possibly a somewhat off the wall suggestion, but today I'm going to recommend You Need A Budget, which is a program you may want to try out to do the same thing.

This is actually not what I use for my budget, I do it all in a spreadsheet that mostly works quite well for me. I'm especially committed to my free spreadsheet system ever since the YNAB software became subscription based instead of a one-time payment model. However, the principles that helped me build my personal spreadsheet are very heavily based on the Four Rules from the YNAB model.

I still have a huge amount to learn when it comes to personal finance, but knowing where your money is going is really important.

(By the way, this is not an ad, I genuinely just really like the YNAB principles.)

Pages Read:

Day 1: 106

Day 2: 282

Day 3: 84

Day 4: 252

Day 5: 221

Day 6 (so far): 25

Cumulative: 970

Cumulative Target: 600

How Far Off Track Am I?: -370