Everyone says to make a budget. But hardly anybody says how difficult it really is. For instance, if you listen to the Dave Ramsey show, you'll hear him tell at least two or three people a day to make a budget.
"Sit down," he'll say, "write your income at the top of the paper, then subtract your most important expense, then your next most important expense, and so on until you get to zero. If you run out of expenses, then designate that surplus toward your debt snowball (if you have one, and almost all of his listeners do) or your savings."
See? Super easy.
Right.
As if you know exactly how much money you're going to have for the month, on the very first day of the month. As if you know exactly how much every little expense is going to be. A month ahead. As if you even know how much your larger expenses will be...Do you know how much you're going to spend on food this month? Yeah, me neither. Do you know how much your electricity bill will be when it shows up mid-month? Yeah, me neither. I know what my mortgage payment will be. There are a couple other small bills that I can know exactly, but most of my major bills are variable. By quite a bit.
THAT is what makes budgeting difficult. If you knew your income exactly, and you knew all your expenses exactly, you wouldn't need a budget. You'd have one-- the easiest budget ever.
Don't get your paycheck on the first of the month? That makes it trickier.
No worries. I'm here to tell you how it can be easy. Just use this one simple trick....It's not easy, so don't be deluded into thinking it is.
It's hard. What makes your budget difficult to create?
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