“Budget” Should Be a Bad (BAD) Word
Has anyone else ever felt this way? I certainly cannot be the only one. PLEASE tell me that I’m not the only one.
I mean, you start off the year excited about what the next 12 months will hold for you and your family (if you have one) and then set some goals. Some of those goals may be financial…which means you probably create a budget. Debbie Downer sets in. Budget. blah. gross. “WHY do we have to set a budget??” you whine (or maybe that’s just me).
Budgets are good. They help you achieve things. But why do they make us feel confined, caged, a prisoner? There’s something freeing about being able to go and just spend money.
The word itself makes me cringe some days. Basically because it means I can’t purchase all the fabulous things I want to purchase. And it means I have to keep my happy hiney out of Target (see that post here) and World Market and any other place I would love to frequent.
I occasionally have a conversation with a coworker who totally gets this. We don’t complain about what we can’t buy…we just talk about the things we would buy if we had a tree that we could pluck money from when we “needed” to.
Something like this little guy.
{Wonder if my local Lowe’s sells this version…}
Over the last few weeks I’ve made an adjustment to my financial life. I took out all credit cards from my wallet. Am I crazy?! Yes. Indeed I am.
Andrew and I don’t use a debit card (per Frank Abagnale, Jr.) so this means I have zero access to being able to purchase ANY.THING.
It was something I needed to do to give our budget a fighting chance (see link below for a quick youtube video on setting up a budget).
If I don’t have cash in my wallet (bills or coins – monopoly money doesn’t exactly work anywhere), I cannot essentially go anywhere. I mean, I have gas in my car so I could just drive around, but what fun is that?
So here’s my dilemma. I’ve spent my allotted cash – it was spent Saturday afternoon when I went somewhere…can’t remember now (pregnancy brain). And because Andrew is a much better money-handler than I, he has the responsibility to go to the store and get what we need. ONLY what we need. And he will. He’s that disciplined. To stick to a budget you have to be disciplined. I am not. Never have been. Will I ever be? I hope! For now, I’m doing what I need to do to force myself to be disciplined.
Closing remarks: Budgets are good. (I keep telling myself this…)
For now, I’m trying to find the joy in being creative with less. Creative in meal planning (I’m no culinary genius), the way we spruce up our in and outdoor living spaces and how we spend our time (is there anything FREE going on anywhere??).
Until Lowe’s starts selling my little tree pictured above, the struggle will continue. We’ll keep looking for ways to save, spend less and find the joy in what we presently have…joy in contentment (there’s another lesson/blog post in this 3 word statement…once I find the joy I’ll share it with you ;)).
How to Set up a Budget by Bank of America -> its almost 6min long and pretty good if you’re looking for the “Where do I even start?”
Good luck and happy spending!
