I have an appointment every Monday, first thing in the morning. I sit down with my coffee, open my laptop and prepare to get serious.

It’s an appointment with my bank account.

Developing a budget is a lot like New Year’s resolutions. You start out focused and ready to conquer the world. Even with the best of intentions, we don’t live in a perfect world and motivation wanes. Your January 1 self vows to eat salad, but the random-Tuesday-in-March self ends up doing the grocery shopping, to put it plainly.

If you have been saying to yourself: I really need to get on track with a budget, then I have some advice for you:

Do it, but get real.

We are heavy into tax season over here! We are checking reports, double checking reports, collecting statements and working hard to get 2024 tied up in a neat bow for all our clients. Can we talk to you about a habit that would make this time of year a little easier?

I’m a pencil and paper gal at heart. Only in the last couple of years have I finally given up on my paper date book with the big squares and graduated to a digital version. While it certainly is more efficient to have it all at my fingertips, old habits die hard and I have often found myself under a pile of random notes on scratch paper. “It’s here somewhere!” I say, looking for the information I know is on the corner of a pink piece of paper, in blue ink and written sideways.