Keeping track of your business investments

When a business invests in something, it does so with the hope that the investment will pay off later. That's the whole purpose of an investment, after all. You put a little into this and hope to get a lot out of it. But a lot of "littles" add up, of course. Thus the necessity of really keeping track of your business investments.

Say you have a student, Fred, and he's going to school and he's very concerned about money but it seems that he never has enough. Fred's going crazy. He can hardly pay for his textbooks and classes. One day, Fred's friend Freda proposes that Fred make up a budget. To make up a budget, Fred must sit down and think hard and realize exactly where his money is going each month. In doing so, Fred realizes (to Freda's secret delight, good old Freda) that he spends about ten bucks a day on snacks and caffeinated beverages. Fred is shocked. That adds up to well over two hundred bucks per month!
How could Fred have been so stupid?

Freda explains. Snacks and caffeinated beverages don't cost much-when thought about individually. Every time Fred spends a dollar on one of these things he only feels the guilt (or worry, or responsibility, or whatever), of spending a dollar. And in that way he nickels and dimes his money right down the drain.

This example works as a cautionary tale for investing as well as it does for budgeting. It's easy to lose track of investments; it's easy to not check up on your investments and see how they're doing; it's easy to become consumed with other things besides business investments. Business, after all, is a big business. You've got lots of things on your mind. But investments, like your budget, should be kept track of every day. You should not only have people who specialize in this sort of thing (your accountants, e.g.), you should have a firm grasp of it in general yourself.

The purpose of a short article such as this is is not to go into any great detail on the art of investing. The purpose of a short article such as this is is to use a practical analogy to get you thinking in practical ways. You must think of yourself as Fred. Freda can be whoever, your nagging business conscious or your nagging accounting department, etc. Your investments are the (considered individually) dollars you're putting into nutrition. (OK, instead of snacks and caffeinated beverages we'll say that Fred was buying fruit and tomato juice, but the principle still holds.) In other words, you do a good thing when you invest, but if you don't keep track of your investments you are, in the end, wasting an impressive lump of money. 'Twere better that Fred go to the grocery store and buy enough fruits and vegetables for the week rather than ambling over to the college cafeteria to get ripped off. 'Tis better that you step slowly and wisely and keep track of your steps rather than investing haphazardly and thus becoming scatterbrained about it.

For those who long to keep track of their business investments, organization and habit are the savings keys. Routine is the saving key. Keeping track of your business investments must be a daily habit; you do X at X time, day in and day out, come rain or shine, weekday or weekend, including holidays. People might say, "But then you don't get your family time in" etc., but that's nonsense. You don't get your family time in when you're scrambling to make up for sloppy investing practices. Get those investing practices cleaned up and in order and ready to go, and your time will open up in all sorts of magnificent ways.