If you want to thrive in this economic environment and prepare for a prosperous 2010, it’s time to pay attention to your finances and create a strategy for the new year. Even if you already keep good records, you can learn to go even deeper into what you can learn from your own numbers so you can get the most value from your money.

I hope that if you suffer from any level of Financial Vagueness Syndrome, you will decide that this is the time to hunker down and get real about your finances. One thing is for certain: Money doesn’t take care of itself. Without care, it’s like a wild child that needs to be tamed.

I’ll have to admit that I avoid talking about this because I know that people would rather have a magic bullet that fixes something and makes their money fine. But without money management, you limit your own prosperity.

Here’s what I suggest:

• If you’re starting from scratch or if you are using something other than money management software, use Quicken or something similar to keep track of your money and to run reports so you can actually see where your money comes from and where it goes.
• If you have a business, then use Quicken for Small Business or QuickBooks, which is the most robust solution.

There are some online solutions, like mint.com, but I discovered limitations when I tried to sign up for mint.com because of the kind of double-password login that my bank uses. I also wasn’t comfortable putting that much financial information online.

Here’s something interesting: it takes most people 3 to 6 months after they decide to start paying attention to their money before they actually do it. And for many, once they do it, after a few months they fall behind again. Money management is a habit that has to become ingrained by doing it over and over again.

Most people know that they need to do something more than they’re doing when it comes to money management, but they avoid doing so because looking at their numbers brings up all sorts of feelings. Avoiding the numbers doesn’t make the feelings any better. Quite the contrary, avoidance can lead to financial crises and increased levels of anxiety, stress, and feelings of guilt and shame.

People often tell me that they’re keeping track of their money in a spreadsheet. This can limit your ability to strategize. A spreadsheet does the math, it doesn’t run reports like a profit and loss statement. In order to build wealth you need to be able to analyze your numbers, which is what reports allow you to do.

I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to look at exactly where your money is coming from and going on a monthly basis. Without knowing what you’re doing, it’s difficult to make rational adjustments and decisions.

So the question is, are you serious about your prosperity? If you are, you’ll make the decision to get real about your money and pay attention to your numbers. No excuses.

My book, Build Your Money Muscles, has easy to follow information for getting started with financial management while dealing with the feelings that come up when you attempt to deal with your numbers. For information about the book, visit http://ProsperityPlace.com/bymm