You really don't know where it all goes, do you?

I'm talking about your money, specifically the paycheck you get every week or two weeks or each month. You deposit it and pretty soon you realize that most of it is gone.

If you're fortunate, by the time you realize most of it is gone, the next one is about to arrive. That means you're just about breaking even. It also means you aren't saving and investing enough.

You need to open what I call a 3x5 savings account.

Don't worry, it isn't hard to do. It just takes a little willpower and a little time. But the rewards can be huge: more money than you probably thought was possible, money that can fund anything up to and including early retirement.

How to Begin

Here's how to do it. Get yourself a pack of 3x5 index cards. Label one of those cards 'Week of June 1.' Put it in your shirt pocket or purse along with a ballpoint pen. Now, for the whole week, under daily headings, jot down every single cent you spend and what you're spending it on.

Cup of coffee? Write it down. Tank of gasoline? Write it down? New purse? Ditto. Oh, and when you get your next paycheck, write down the take-home amount, too, on your 3x5 card.

At the end of the month you'll have four cards that will provide you with a very detailed record of where your money came from and where it went. It might take 30 minutes to tote it all up, but you'll know if you're exceeding your income, playing it close to the edge, or actually saving money to invest.

Congratulations, you're on your way to financial discipline and all the rewards it can bring.

It probably sounds too simple. After all, there's Quicken and other software to help us track our finances, and our banks and credit-card companies offer us detailed monthly statements. We should have plenty of information about where our money is going if we only take the time to examine it. But, of course, we don't take the time to do that.

And even if we did, those tidy looking statements don't capture a lot of the money we spend in seemingly negligible cash transactions. And it's hard to remember, looking at a credit-card statement, precisely what it was we purchased from Macy's or Amazon.

Firsthand Experience

My wife, Jane, and I started a 3x5 account many years ago when we were shocked and surprised that the profits from a house sale had simply disappeared a year later. I had counted on those profits to form the core of a savings program that would allow us, over the years, to buy a boat and save enough to retire early and go sailing.

We both resolved -- that's important because this plan won't work if everyone isn't playing the game -- to figure out where in the world the money was going. The weekly 3x5 cards were the vehicle to do it.

Much was revealed in the first month alone. Restaurants were a primary villain. We had moved to New York from Detroit and were reveling in the variety and quality of dining opportunities suddenly available. And going broke as a result.

The bad part was that most of the meals hadn't been worth what they cost. Good, yes. Memorable, no. We resolved to indulge our own penchant for cooking more often.

To give you an idea of when all this was happening, compact-disc players had just come on the scene and to a classical-music buff like me the earth had moved. But my ambitious plan to replicate my extensive collection of vinyl records with CDs was another major drain on our resources.

When I realized how much I was spending via my 3x5 cards, I immediately saw the value in continuing to enjoy my vinyl records, buying CDs only when a disc of note was released. I can only imagine the number of 99-cent entries my card would show today were I addicted to an iPod.

The revelations of that first month of 3x5 entries were astounding. The changes we made immediately in our spending habits probably added well over $10,000 to our savings in the first year. And while later gains were incrementally smaller, they nevertheless added up. When we combined periodic raises at work with increasingly detailed efforts to save, the results became very impressive.

Mind you, we kept the exercise simple: take-home pay matched against expenses. We didn't try to include gains (or losses) from investments. The point was to build an investment portfolio out of routine cash flow, not to measure our constantly fluctuating net worth.

Secrets of Success

The 3x5 account turned out to be a great vehicle for saving for several reasons. First, of course, it was invaluable to have a real-time record of all our expenses.

But there was an equally important psychological benefit. Psychologists talk about 'buyer's remorse,' the feeling you get when a new purchase doesn't really turn out to be as fulfilling as you had thought. By committing ourselves to record every purchase at the time we made it, Jane and I often experienced buyer's remorse before we actually bought something.

Do I really need this? More often than not, we answered no and put the item back on the shelf.

Because we had ambitious plans for the future we stuck to our 3x5 accounts for years until we reached our goals. But in reality it only took a year or two to build the discipline that allowed us to control our spending and save and invest conscientiously.

Try it. It you stick with it for a while, a 3x5 account will work for you, too.

你的确不知道它都到哪里去了，是吗？

我说的是你的钱，特别是你每一、两周或每月得到的工资。你把钱存下后不久就会发现大部分钱都花掉了。

如果你运气好，在你意识到钱花得差不多了时，下一笔钱就又要到帐了。这意味着你正好能做到收支相抵。这也意味着你没有足够的钱储蓄和投资。

你需要开一个我称之为3x5的储蓄账户。

不要担心，要做到这点并不麻烦，仅需要一点毅力和一点时间即可。但回报却是巨大的：省下的钱可能会超过你的想象，这笔钱能为你做任何事情，甚至包括提前退休。

如何开始

具体做法是：为自己准备一叠3x5的索引卡。给其中一张标上"6月1日当周"。将卡片同一支圆珠笔一起放到衬衣口袋或是钱包中。现在，以天为单位写下全周你的每一分支出和将这笔钱花到哪方面了。

喝了杯咖啡？记下来。加了箱油？写下来。买了个新钱包？也写下来。还有，当你得到下一笔薪水时，也将数字写在3x5卡的收入栏中。

到月底时，你就会有4张卡片，它们非常详细地记录了你的钱来自哪里，又花到哪里去了。你可能需要30分钟才能将它们完全理顺，但由此你能了解是收不抵支、基本平衡，还是能赚下钱来投资。

祝贺你，你现在已经开始执行财务纪律了，你会收获它能带来的所有回报。

这听起来似乎过于简单了。毕竟，市面上有Quicken等软件可以帮助我们跟踪财务状况，我们的银行和信用卡公司也每月提供收支明细。只要我们花点时间核对，我们会有足够的信息了解钱花到哪里去了。但是，我们并没有花时间这么做。

即使我们做了，这些外观整洁的表格也不会记录下我们花掉的许多看似无足轻重的小钱。只从信用卡帐单上也很难记起我们到底从Macy's或亚马逊(Amazon)购买了什么。

第一手经验

我的妻子简(Jane)和我多年前就开始使用3x5卡记帐了，起因是我们对出售一套房子的获利仅用一年时间就挥霍一空深感震惊。我还曾指望用这笔钱建立一个核心储蓄账户呢，想着这能让我们过几年后买条船，并存下足够的钱提前退休，享受航海乐趣。

我们俩都决心搞清楚这笔钱都花到哪里去了，这点至关重要，因为如果大家都稀里糊涂的话，那这个计划根本无法执行。3x5周卡就是实现这个目标的利器。

第一个月就揭示出了许多真相。餐馆就是罪魁祸首。我们当时从底特律搬到了纽约，各种美食不禁让我们大快朵颐，入不敷出也就顺理成章了。

不足之处是大部分饭菜不能算是物有所值。好吃不假，但回味无穷却谈不上。我们决定更多地在家里做饭，满足自己的口味。

从下面的叙述中你可以了解这一切发生的大致时间：CD播放机刚刚出现，对于我这样的古典音乐迷来说，这是一个全新的世界。但我用CD翻录我收藏的大量磁带的宏伟计划是我们的另一个大黑洞。

在我通过我的3x5卡认识到我花了多少钱时，我立刻看到了继续欣赏我的磁带、而只在发布热门专辑时购买CD的价值。我能想象如果自己现在对iPod上了瘾，我3x5卡上的99美分支出条目会有多么可观。

第一个月3x5条目中揭示出来的情况让人震撼。我们立刻改变了支出习惯，这在第一年中大概为我们省下了10,000多美元。尽管以后增加的金额就越来越少了，但毕竟还是在增加。当我们把定期增加的工资同越来越详尽的节约努力结合起来时，结果就更令人印象深刻。

要提醒你的是，我们的方法很简单：仅需详细记录家庭收入与开支。我们没有加入投资损益。这样做是为了把投资组合排除到日常的现金流之外，不考虑我们资产净值的经常性波动。

成功的秘密

3x5记录卡之所以是理想的节约工具有多个原因。首先当然是它能实时记录我们的所有开支，这也是最有价值的地方。

但它也有同样重要的心理益处。心理学上有"顾客反悔"一说，即新购买的商品并未给你带来当初想象的那种满足感。我们答应要在购买商品时立刻记录下来，这样简和我经常在实际购买前就经历了顾客反悔。

我真的需要这件商品吗？我们的回答常常是否定的，然后就会把它搁回到货架上。

因为我们对未来雄心勃勃，所以我们多年来一直坚持记录3x5卡，直到达到目标为止。但实际上只需要用一两年的时间养成纪律，我们就能控制支出，尽职尽责地节约和投资。

试一下吧。如果坚持一段时间，3x5记录卡也会给你带来好处。
关键字:财经新闻
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