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To Secure Your Company's Financial Future, Do This Until you really understand your spending, you'll never be financially secure.

By Steph Wagner

This story appears in the July 2016 issue of Entrepreneur. Subscribe »

David Rinella

I'm a financial strategist. I tell people how to manage their wealth. But I have a confession to make: I didn't have my own personal-finance aha moment until several years ago. For decades, I had blissfully blurred the line between "wants" and "needs" -- until I got a divorce, which is when those two things were put in stark relief. To maintain my predivorce lifestyle, I realized, I needed to immediately bring home five figures each month. I didn't need or want that kind of pressure.

Each of us may have a moment like this. You may think you're protected from it; I did, too. But here's the thing: Even if you do avoid a life-changing financial shake-up, you should always understand how you use your money. And you can't accomplish that until you divide your spending into many little pieces.

Here's how I learned to do it.