Your Money or Your Life Monday

I've been religiously writing down every dime we spend or earn. I thought it would be more tedious than it is. Nothing too enlightening yet. We're trying to spend as we normally do, but it is funny how you're more careful when you have to account for it. I guess you can compare it to dieting. You think twice about eating that donut when you know you have to write down the calories.

The next step in Your Money or Your Life is figuring how much "stuff" we own and what it's worth. I've been trying to get motivated to do this, but it does seem like a quite a chore. I mean to walk through our entire house and essentially inventory clothes, food, toys, furniture, electronics, etc. Plus, you not only have to inventory it, then you have to consider what you could sell it for to arrive at its estimated value. I'm sure our $2,000 LCD television that we splurged on a few Christmases ago isn't worth close to that anymore.

With a nice mortgage on the house, you can't count your home as something you own. Although I would think we could include the equity. Then there are the cars, the lawn equipment, dishes, appliances, the list goes on and on. I am interested to see what the final number is, but not sure if I'm excited or nervous. It could be depressing to think of all the money we spent through the years to acquire stuff that doesn't amount to much.

I think the goal of the exercise is to assess what you own and what all of that "stuff" actually means to you. Hopefully by doing this, I'll come across many items that I can add to the garage sale pile...