trust me on this.

the budget works. okay, the budget has taken a bit of a hit this month, i'll confess. there's a week left in the month, and i've already sent out the "don't use the debit card without prior authorization, pretty please" warning to my dear husband. i'm embarrassed to admit that the grocery budget isn't looking too rosy at this point, either...i took out a larger chunk, thought i would do one big shopping trip to stock up, and ended up getting a cold and blowing money on comfort food instead. my incredibly organized, frugal shopping adventure didn't exactly materialize, but somehow the cash ended up spent. siiiigh. all this is to say: i'm no saint, but at least we've got a plan. meet the budget. this is a fictional version of what we use to keep track of our monies, because it would be really creepy if we told the internets how much we make and spend. all you have to do to make it your own is track what you spend for a month, put it in the spent column, and see how you're doing. spend more than you took in? whoops. just about right? keep tracking. under? geez, you're amazing. i update ours every day or every other day, and it just takes a second. when i want to see if we have money left at the end of the month for another tank of gas, or for a ticket to a fun event, i make changes to the "budgeted" column to "move funds around." no shame in that. the budget is not your boss. YOU'RE the boss here. as long as it stays under what i make, that's fine. we have a unique situation, as well, in that my income is steady, but my better half's is not. we just don't budget for his. we separate it out into three categories, unless another big expense has popped up: savings plan (including paying down debt), travel fund, and drum fund. your priorities might be different. very few of you need to buy new mallets all the time, i'm sure, but you get the idea. if you have more regular income, you can put things like this into the budget. i'm no financial expert, but this works for me. try it, you'll like it!