Budget Help: 101

By Lev Novak

Making and keeping a budget can be a difficult endeavor. Things that make sense on paper- I’ll eat ramen every day and walk to work!- don’t end up being fun or practical. There’s a cost of living, and expenses that follow: shampoo, toilet paper, really good craft beer, a date, lending your friend fifty bucks.

A strict, practical budget can be hard to follow, and it’s very easy to find yourself with less money than you’d like. Think about it; all of us have less money than we’d like.

Fortunately, budgeting can be fun and easy. Okay, it can’t be. But, if you’re really reluctant to begin budgeting, or the concept of finance seems tough, than read along. Because…

1. Be Nice To Yourself

This is the first bit of advice I have for anyone who’d rather not think about budgeting. People think of budgeting as an all-or-nothing issue, where on the one side is the life they enjoy where money vanishes or a bland, stressful, penny-pinching life.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Make a budget that includes flex spending, personal treats, and hamburgers.

What!? Budgeting in hamburgers! But it’s cheaper to…yes, it’s cheaper to cook, or it’s cheaper hunt down wild boar and make your own bacon, or it’s cheaper to sleep on a floor and sell your mattress online. Whatever. There are things in life more important than money, and if you think that budgeting has to mean that you live totally in boring gray, than you’re missing the point of budgeting.

We’re all bad with money. We all spend it on things we like that don’t make perfect logical sense. Want to maximize money at the expense of happiness? Make a perfect, solid budget. Plan your entire life around it. Skip dates, movies and bars because PBR from your fridge is cheaper. But if you want a real life, understand that your budget will respect fun, and even expenses that don’t sound logical.

We’re not fully logical, and that’s okay.

2. Something is Better Than Nothing

If you’re new to budgeting, understand that it’s better to start small with something you’ll actually do than to devote yourself to a budget you’ll quickly ignore.

Let’s say you’re new to the budget lifestyle. But you’re a smart ambitious kid; you’ll figure this out. Wham! You’ve figured out a perfect budget for the next six months; you’ve figured out everythinggggg.

Except for haircuts. Or toilet paper. Or, what’s that thing where it’s not really an emergency but you could really use a better coat this winter?

Budgeting is hard, and when your overly ambitious budget fails, many people panic and break the whole system. That’s the wrong idea. Instead of planning everything out at first, come up with a compromise.

For example; instead of a total budget, plan on spending less at bars. Not “no money” but less. Start small, and when that works out, pay attention to your eating-out budget; don’t cut it entirely, just be aware. Slowly, steadily, you’ll get your budget at a pace that works for you.

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