My Battle With Budgeting

I guess you could say I received a pretty good financial education growing up. My parents taught me two very important things: (1) debt should be avoided and (2) living within a budget was not just a nice thing to do, but rather, essential.

As soon as I was old enough to start handling money, my parents taught me their budget system, which I followed to the letter for many years afterward. And then I started grad school, and reconciling my budget started taking too much time, and I stopped.

For the last few years, I haven't bothered. It's been ok. I've still spent less that I've made. I haven't gotten into financial trouble as a result of my laxity, so I haven't been too worried.

But I think maybe there is a better way to live.

I'm trying a baby-step experiment this week: I'm only paying for purchases with cash. Some people say that's a good way to save money because it forces you to be more intentional about what you spend money on. Maybe if I remind myself how good it feels to intentionally save money, I'll want to do more of it.

Today, I only spent $0.27. A good start.