I am by no stretch of anyone’s imagination a Luddite.  I love me some gadgets and gizmos.  New tools that make life easier or faster or better make me feel all fuzzy with want and excitement.  My miter-box-saw in the garage has a laser cutting guide, I waited for iPhone OS4 like a kid waiting for Santa, and I am currently in the throes of in internal struggle trying to decide what e-book reader is the best for my needs vs. which one is the shiniest…  By those standards one might perceive that I always turn to technology for everyday solutions…  Not so.  We are in the middle of divesting our budget and payment tracking from a super-over complicated spreadsheet (yes, I made it that way) and switching to an old fashioned 12-column ledger book.  We are taking a step back in time so that we can see every day where all the money goes.  It won’t be hidden in 1s and 0s inside a notebook computer or on a USB stick – it will be a tangible and easily consulted record when we want to see if there are funds for a new e-book, wheels for Matt’s road bike, the latest fiction must-have at B&N, or cash for Laurel’s shoe lust.  A ledger keeps all of the information RIGHT THERE and there is no clicking between screens or scrolling down, etc…

Manual record keeping has been around since man started making beer, selling crops and I am sure that a ledger was involved in the early days of the world’s oldest profession…   The new way isn’t always the better  way – GASP! (full disclosure: we will be taking hi-res pictures of the pages every month and including those images on our external hard drive for back-up purposes)

I found a 150 page, acid free paper version on Amazon that we are currently looking forward to filling with notes of bills paid, confirmation numbers, etc, etc…  It should last a good long while.  Many years from now our grand children with either lovingly peruse the yellowed pages after the last of us passes from this earth, wondering aloud how things could have been so cheap in 2010 and how cute it was that we had a “Book Budget.”  Well, either that or they will throw it away in their attempt to deal with the clutter and possessions from the years of our lives in the couple of days they have allotted to “deal” with our things.  I hope it is the former.