Other balances I keep track of is points balance.
I am also slowly working towards these goals.

This summer I want in first class to Shanghai on Cathay Pacific (this is the most luxurious, fantastic service first class product out there, preferred by many travelers even over Singapore air or Etihad), than on to Sichuan and Singapore, and than DH and I came back from Singapore in Business class (fully flat seats, but after first class it was hard to come down).

Anyway, I used up all my points, even had to buy $200 worth of them to get my awards, so I started anew.

I don't travel for business, so all my points are earned now by credit card.

So this month I got:

1,460 From spending on AA card
1,000 bonus from AA card
1,000 points for watching video (AA promo)
3,900 points from aa shopping portal (now I check every time I want to buy something if there is a link through the portal)
1,000 points bonus points for shopping over 300$ through shopadvantage.

So, I will be earning $8,360 points. Which is not an insignificant percentage of 67,500 points needed for MileSaver first class award to Asia (hard to find, but I did it few times before already).

New miles balance - almost 32,000 points. By the end of the year, I should have enough for a one way first class ticket.

DH has enough miles in his account for 2 more first class tickets (earned for opening aa card with a special promotion of 100,000 for spending 3k a month for a number of months). So we are on the way to getting 3 tickets one way. At least this is enough for our family to go one way first class to Asia, in a relaxed and enjoyable way.

This year, we are flying to Scotland and Iceland, in economy, paid with money. But suffering 9 hours to Scotland and 5.5 from Iceland is better than 16+ hours to Asia. We will save our miles for that trip instead.