I’ve written a lot about how I think goals and tracking those goals have made a huge impact on my financial progress.

But you might wonder how to track these goals? There are a few automated ways to do it using websites like Personal Capital or Mint (personally I do keep a Mint account fairly up to date) or even an app like Dobot has useful goal setting and tracking features.

For me though, the big thing was physically sitting down for an hour or so each month and entering things into a spreadsheet.

I’ve used the same net worth tracking Excel sheet since 2013. I built it myself based on a template in a personal finance book I read.

I’m a dork stage manager though and spreadsheets are my jam. I’m aware not many other people get so excited about creating them.

Fortunately, there are plenty of other dorks out there too who have created money tracking spreadsheets that you can download for free or a nominal cost to jump start your personal finance journey.

They range from really simple to incredibly complex. If the ones that create graphs and charts for you seem overwhelming, go with a simple one. If you love some graphs, go with one of the more complex ones.

Or you can download the simple one I use for free right here.

Also, an interesting thought, I’ve noticed that a lot of personal finance bloggers have a Personal Capital or Mint account but the majority of us really track our finances using an old fashioned spreadsheet, which leads me to think there may be something to the whole sitting down and sorting through things yourself.

Budgets Are Sexy

• FREE – Net Worth Tracker

Cents + Purpose

• FREE – Net Worth Tracker

Daintymuse

• $9.00 – Net Worth Tracker (include budget and expense tracking templates)

FinAccountable

• $.99 – Net Worth Tracker

Financial Independence Spreadsheet

• FREE – Net Worth Tracker (geared towards those aiming to FIRE)

Johnny Africa

• FREE – Net Worth Tracker (all the graphs)

Money Under 30

• FREE – Net Worth Tracker

PlannerStudioGR

• $6.77 – Net Worth Tracker (includes budgeting and expense tracking tools)

Printable by Michelle

• $5.32 – Net Worth Tracker (includes several other financial planning tools)

Spreadsheet Central

• $2.78 – Net Worth Tracker

Squawk Fox

• FREE – Net Worth Tracker (American and Canadian versions)

Young Adult Money

• FREE – Net Worth Tracker

Here’s another nice thing about tracking your net worth – you get to know your spending habits pretty well. I’ll level with you. I know how to budget. I have used a budget from time to time. But I freaking hate budgets.

Tracking my net worth for years has let me live largely budget free, because I can see the iceberg coming up ahead and change course when I notice weird spending choices or that my net worth is going down instead of up over a few months (stock market aside because that roller coaster is what it is).

It’s also easy to blow through a budget in a state of semi-denial but seeing the hard numbers of how much I spent on things is harder to ignore. I also noticed that it took a while, but there were times I could barely remember what I had spent money on in the beginning and realized that I really didn’t need some of those things because by the end of one month, they didn’t even matter to me.

I also learned the opposite – that some things are worth spending money on because at the end of the month I think back on a purchase when I’m putting it in the right expense column and think, dang, I’m happy with that purchase.