Most people think about budgeting as some sort of high moral ground. But the reality is that budgeting need not be a challenge. The more money they have to spend the more there is to keep track of. Who has the time to detail every latte they spend money on at the hospital cafe, the various monthly bills from cable to internet, the cost of their children, etc etc. Spending money is easy, but keeping track is not. Many people I know, including attending physicians, describe budgeting as a difficult thing- especially because of all their expenses as doctors. ![]() After all, whats the point of budgeting if we can’t stick to it? Worse, we may just think budgeting doesn’t work. Thoughts like “I can’t hold a budget whats the point” or “Look how lazy I am, I can't take the time to cook” may cross our minds. Taking money out of an allotted budget is tantamount to greed, such as blowing the budget due to eating out too much. I think this is because of how we’ve been conditioned to think about budgeting. As a result, having a budget is all but a Sisyphean disaster to many with constant juggling of funds and mentally removing cash from one area of spending to cover another area of over-spending.Ī lot of times, in addition to the anxieties of fitting a budget, even when we have to ‘break’ our preset budgets with good reason we feel a sense of guilt. the rigidity of budgeting limits fluidity. What happens if I spend more money for food than anticipated? These types of questions lead to problems with proper budgeting- i.e. Setting aside X amount of dollars for food or gas causes anxiety because after allocating our funds for different categories we have no money left. It deals with other constraints we create- mainly the week to week spending we allot ourselves. Maybe we won't spend more than we have, or we use only cash, or only one credit card. However, many of us have a preset tolerance. Ultimately we all have an absolute constraint- the limit of how much money and credit we actually have. There are two reasons budgeting scares people away, anxiety and guilt.īudgeting can cause anxiety. So all I’ve ever had was a vague idea of where my money was going- and I almost always spent more than I should have. The problem with budgeting is that it has caused me years of anxiety and guilt. How else can we convince ourselves to save and not burn through cash? Unfortunately, savings requires the utilization of its less glamorous sibling: budgeting. After all these years of living in poverty, who wouldn’t want to finally project their hard earned income and turn it into millions eventually (at least in their minds)? This is a mentality I also share I believe it is a healthy one after all. Savings allows for a penchant for fantasy and to pull out the oft-hidden magic 8 ball. This is my mantra.īudgeting is the less glamorous sibling of saving. ![]() Physician Wellness and Financial Literacy Conference – Park City.Continuing Financial Education – Las Vegas.Financial Wellness and Burnout Prevention for Medical Professionals.I enter charges every couple of days and by staying consistant it helps us be aware of where are money is going now, and where it is going to have to go in a few day, weeks or even months. I have used it for over 2 years, and it has paid for itself over and over again. There are also helpful forums and customer support to help if questions come up. We use credit cards, but the way I have it set up it basically treats credit card purchases as cash purchases so that we keep spending in check. I use it a bit differently but it works well for us. Once you purchase it you can go through tutorials on how to use it. So you are carrying over actual money, but according to the budget every dollar is working for you in a catagory. That way every dollar is going to work, either currently to pay bills or is already earmarked for the unexpected or planned expensis that come up. You can use it basically as a virtual “envelope” system and budgeting money into specific catagories so that every month your carryover is $0. Yes, you can use it to save for the unexpected. So no, you don’t need to have an I-phone or anything fancy. I have only used it on our laptop or desktop. ![]() For years I used an xcel spreadsheet and it worked, but when I switched to YNAB it was so much easier to really see where our money was going and what we wanted to save for.
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