why should you budget?
Just to warn you, I’m not offering new insight to answer this question. For me, it is a moot point because I intrinsically know that having a budget is essential to financial success in my life. However, it seems that my partner is very anti-budget and feels that “numbers on paper then rule your life”. I’ve tried my sensible approach to this issue, I’ve tried my exasperated plea to this issue, I’ve tried my huffy fist full of spousal-like-power to this issue, and I’ve not gained any ground.
A budget is still a tool from hell sent from the financially extravagant to damn the lives of the simple people who merely want their freedom to spend as responsibly as the moment demands and without need to support, challenge, or verify their spending. Financial goals are simply philosophical impossibilities that can never be met with careful financial planning because life does not operate in accordance with anyone’s set agenda and therefore will rule any established plan moot and an obvious waste of time. Budgets establish a passive way of life where line items on a spreadsheet have more value than the need or want that a particular purchase would sever.
Sigh.
Now, we agree in so many ways about being financially responsible and living below our means, yadda yadda. But when it comes down to the nuts and bolts of it, my current detailed budget and record keeping freaks him out and he sees my plot to design and enforce a budgeted household will destroy the very value of life that he so often decries as irresponsible and unsuccessful (financially speaking).
I’m up on my high horse because I know, and cannot be persuaded otherwise, that a budget is the best thing for establishing and reaching financial goals as a family unit. I know that I’ve lost considerable ground in this discussion by my earlier attempts to somehow flip the switch on the beauty of budgeting. I hope that we will establish some common ground, that we’ll be able to build an acceptable budget together, and that financial prosperity will only be months (okay, years) of realistic and conscientious spending away.
But first, I need to get him to agree and understand how budgeting is a powerful tool for improving financial habits, responsibility, and progress.