How do you keep your finances on track? Are there any online tools you use to keep track of what you’re spending and where? When was the last time you were caught off guard (pleasantly or not-so-much) when you checked your bank account balance?

It would be really easy to turn this response into a plug for my own company’s FinanceWorks, but I’ll restrict myself to mentioning it here. I actually do not use FinanceWorks because I don’t patronize a financial institution that has it. That being said, if I had access I would.

I keep my finances on track through a simpler method. I have two checking accounts. One pays the bills. The other one is my “running money” and only has a debit card attached. There are no printed checks and online bill pay isn’t set up (much to the bank’s apparent dismay).

Whatever I have in that account is whatever I have to spend on food, gas, entertainment and similar. If I’m careful, I can keep from running through the money that goes in with each paycheck and thus build up enough of a balance to do something really special. If I’m not careful, I have to skip luxuries and live cheaply.

Since my bills are paid, though, I don’t have to do without the essentials. By making the “pay bills” account a little less accessible — it does not have a debit or ATM card attached — I’m (mostly) able to maintain enough discipline to keep my overall financial picture on track.

I check both accounts’ balances daily so I tend not to encounter surprises of either type. I find that reassuring. I might not always have much in my bank accounts, but I have enough not to worry. That’s one less source for anxiety. On the other hand, I don’t always quite know where my money goes but heavy use of a debit card makes it hard for me to keep track.

That’s why I’d love to be able to hook a financial management tool to my debit card. Tools like mint.com won’t work because I want to track my spending real-time instead of having to enter data about each and every transaction. I’ll be glad when demand gets to the point that I have access to something within my bank account.

And as someone whose income partially depends on the popularity of FinanceWorks, I’d love to see my bank and credit union install that one in particular. :)

With the news coming out about the government bailout of the banking industry, I’m expecting it won’t be long at all before I hear someone talking about why the government shouldn’t be spending tax money to account for private individuals’ and companies’ mistakes. I’ve heard some clear implications in such statements about a belief that this means that essentially the government is paying for goods and services that should be bought and sold on the open market.

To a degree, I understand this. I don’t even completely disagree with it. But I do have a slightly different perspective to present, one that I think is worth a little thought.

This is because I’ve defaulted on loans in the past. I take full responsibility for that — I signed the paperwork — and this isn’t an excuse although I’ll note that I when I took the loans, I had every reason to think my financial situation was secure enough to handle them. They had fixed rates and they weren’t gambles.

I’m working my way through the fallout, but this mistake — and it was a mistake, a terrible one — has meant some financial consequences that many people may not realize.

I pay one of the highest tax rates, in terms of flat percentage of income, in the country. A large part of this is because I do not take mortgage interest deductions on my annual return. I can’t. I can’t get a mortgage. This means that the government gets more money from me, percent wise, than it gets from many other people.

There is a finance company that is making an enormous amount of money off me thanks to last year’s car purchase. I won’t even tell most people what my interest rate is because it is so obscene; and no bank would touch me. My own credit union wouldn’t even finance me*. This means my car will not cost me the sales price. Thanks to that interest rate it will cost me three times that figure. My car payment is higher than some people’s rent — and I won’t have the credit rating to refinance until I’m at least halfway through the loan period.

The only credit card in my wallet is my corporate card. When I have an unexpected personal expense come up, I have to rearrange my actual liquid budget. That has sometimes locked me into a consistent cycle of other late payments; at other times I had to resort to loan-shark programs with huge interest rates — so someone else made a lot of money off me. I didn’t manage to get out of that cycle until I went into corporate work and had enough income to actually be able to come up with a budget that has a cushion. I still worry about unexpected expenses; there is only so much cushion in my budget.

Some of this is choices. I don’t have to drive an almost-brand-new car. I don’t have to keep cats and thus have vet bills. I don’t have to rent a nice condo in Midtown Atlanta.

But have you ever tried to live the way you have to live when you make the alternate choices? Have you ever lived in mouse-ridden, leaky apartments, driven cars that broke down on a regular basis, and denied yourself any entertainment at all for years at a time? Would you do that if you didn’t have to? I don’t have to anymore, and given the length of time I did, I do feel like I legitimately deserve to live a little. Those who know me know that I’m still not extravagant. I’ll still pass on things because I don’t feel like I should spend the money.

It’s very easy to talk about choices when you don’t have to make them.

So when I hear about “irresponsibility” and people deliberately costing other people money, I don’t disagree. It does cost other people money when you default on a loan or similar. But it also costs you. For years. Even bankruptcy doesn’t truly wipe the slate clean. Nobody likes the consequences of a default — not even the one who does it.

Isn’t that worth thinking about?

* And this is despite the fact that I paid off a previous car loan, through them, five months early.