Write and Live on Your Budget

Write and Live on Your Budget​

It should be a piece of cake, right? Identify long-term goals that require money. Prioritize monthly spending from necessary to trivial. Add your net income and subtract expenses. Adjust planned spending or consider additional income as necessary.

Even though I have ten checking accounts from financial institutions (banks and credit unions, mostly), I still find budgeting one of the more difficult household tasks. Cleaning up after myself is probably number one. So what’s the problem?

My housing payment is the same every month. Utilities fluctuate seasonally, but I more or less know that there will be a bill and that a mean average should be set aside for gas, electric, water, trash, phones, and cable/Internet. Health insurance is paid directly from the paycheck. Car insurance is one thing that I review regularly. But, when I find a low price should I jump on it? I wonder if changing car coverage frequently might be upsetting the cart!

The plan seems so nice and neat and useful on paper until … I see things in the grocery store that I decide I need to have, or my car decides that it is in need of new tires, or my dentist tells me that my co-payment is going to be higher than expected, or the Dollar Tree raises its rates to $1.25+ per item.

I’m pretty thrifty with food and manage to live on rice, beans, and produce. I only eat meat outside the house and even then it’s usually just chicken. I also don’t eat out more than once a week. No smoking habit. No drinking habit.

Thrift is also a habit that spills into eating. The meals are budgeted, weighed, or measured. Most Americans recoil at the notion of weighing or measuring plated food, but I find it comforting. It gives me control over what I eat. I guess most folks feel they would rather eat with wild abandon and suffer the consequences of over-consumption with excess weight to carry.

Both weight and money have been life-long struggles. One day my day will come!