Firevalt Blog – Personal finance and entrepreneurship

Information vs. wisdom

March 11th, 2006

I’m a Mac user now, but when I had a PC I used Microsoft Money. I used it for a couple of years, keeping track of all my incomes and outgoes. Sometimes I typed the entries, sometimes I downloaded them from my bank’s website, but each transaction always included the date, the payee, the amount, and a category I assigned it to. I prided myself on managing all the data so well and keeping it all clean — e.g. no derivative spellings such as Walmart, Wal-mart, etc. At the end of the year I found it fascinating to see how much I had spent at Wendy’s, or on shoes, or how many of the transactions were for the same exact amount.

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Cape Fear film But I’m not sure if all that data helped me much. I don’t believe complicated or even interesting reports made me a better steward of my money. I had tons of information but not much wisdom. That was the natural outcome of what I believe is a common practice for many people — copying their bank statements to a computer program.

What we need is wisdom, and it would probably help if there weren’t so much information to get in the way.

Do you pay yourself — putting aside a portion to savings or investment — each paycheck? Do you live within your means? Do you live frugally? Wisdom is to live these principles.

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