A couple of months ago I came across a great post by budget on a stick where he introduced the concept of a Money Map. He defines it as a “chart that shows you where all your money is coming in and going out“. In theory, this should be super simple but it will ultimately depend on your understanding of how your money flows through the various buckets you’ve created as part of your financial strategy.

My Financial Money Map

I’m a visual guy so building my own financial money map represented a neat challenge to be a part of. I didn’t know how or where exactly to begin so I decided to conduct a sticky note exercise in our home office. The wife freaked out with all the yellow on the wall but once I explained what I was doing, she was on board with the idea.

By the time I was done, I realized it was gonna be difficult to take a picture of my sticky note plan (and be able to understand all aspects of it) and post it directly on the blog. Unfortunately, I had no choice but to translate it into a flowchart created in Microsoft Visio which surprisingly came out better than I had anticipated but definitely not as flashy as Lily’s from The Frugal Gene.

I was not anticipating any shocking surprises; however, I must admit it has lots of buckets. Before you start thinking about how in the world I can keep up with this insanity I need to give all the credit to my good old friend Automation.

On my financial money map, all the solid lines represent transactions that are fully automated whereas dashed lines are discretionary. Visually, my money map might seem complicated and perhaps overwhelming to some but the only thing I can say is that it works for us :).

Building Your Own Money Map

1. Start with all the money coming in. In my case, the green boxes capture my paycheck, bonuses (annual), rental income, dividends, and peer-to-peer lending. If you have other sources of regular income feel free to include those as appropriate.
2. Include accounts where the money is sent to. We have two checking accounts (primary and secondary) that source the majority of all other buckets.
3. The next step is to understand your spending habits and know where your money is going. You can download the statements from all of your accounts and dump them in excel or you can be more efficient and use the free services of Personal Capital and/or mint. On my map, you can see money going to tax-deferred accounts (yellow), expenses (gray), and other places (blue) for short and/or long-term growth.
4. Please be careful with the amount of information and detail you include on your financial money map. You definitely do not want to expose yourself to hackers looking to capitalize on your good intentions.

Join The Chain Gang

As I initially mentioned, the post on budget on a stick was fundamental in my desire to put my financial money map together; however, I also need to give credit to Apathy Ends as the idea was also theirs. I hope you join other bloggers and create your own Money Map.

1. Write a post in which you create your own map, explain how you did it, and talk about anything you discovered about your finances using the map.
2. At the bottom of your post link back to the other bloggers before you in The Chain.
3. When you tweet out your post tag the other bloggers. (You may have to do a few replies to your post as the chain gets bigger)
4. Try to keep your list of chain members up to date. This helps encourage others to keep their back-links up to date and in turn, helps you.

The Official Money Map Chain Gang:

Anchors: Apathy Ends, Budget on a Stick

1. The Luxe Strategist
2. Adventure Rich
3. Minafi
4. Othalafehu
5. The Frugal Gene
6. Working Optional
7. Our Financial Path
8. Atypical Life
9. Eccentric Rich Uncle
10. Cantankerous Life
11. The Retirement Manifesto
12. Debts to Riches
13. Need2Save
14. Money Metagame
15. CYinnovations
16. I Dream of FIRE
17. Stupid Debt
18. Spills Spot
19. Making Your Money Matter
20. Life Zemplified
21. Trail to FI
22. The Lady in the Black
23. Smile & Conquer
24. Her Money Moves
25. Full Time Finance
26. Abandoned Cubicle
27. Freedom is Groovy
28. Millennial Money Diaries
29. All About Balance
30. A Journey to FI
31. Present Value Finance
32. [Halt Catch Fire]