Forget about people telling you that you should budget, you should do this and do that.
If you don’t want to budget, you will feel like you are being forced to… and this will make you resent it even more.
Why do you budget?
And if you don’t, what’s stopping you (or do you have another brilliant money plan in place)?
REASONS FOR WHY I BUDGET
I budget because…
A) it makes me feel like I am in control of my money
I spent years in the dark about my money.
I spent without checking (although I never racked up a penny in credit card or payday loan interest), and I didn’t understand the basics of common money sense.
Now, I budget and track my expenses so that I am sure I haven’t forgotten anything, and I can check my final spending at the end of every year, and compare to how well (or badly) I did compared to the previous year.
B) it makes me accountable for reckless spending
Let me dispel any kind of illusion for you: I make money mistakes and I absolutely spend on things that are totally unnecessary.
After I spend my money, I check my Regret-o-Meter. Sometimes it flares up, and I end up returning said item.. and other times, I feel good buying something that wasn’t necessary, because I wanted it for a long time (usually), I had the money for it, and it was in the price range I was willing to pay for.
For all of the expenses that I regret, I try to return the item, or I just eat the cost and learn to do better the next time.
Case in point: Train tickets
I like being organized and worry-free; sometimes too much so.
I recently purchased a NON-REFUNDABLE, NON-TRANSFERABLE train ticket to get from one city to another, on a certain date.
I was SO CERTAIN it would be okay that I forked over $49.27 (it was on a summer sale and I thought I had my dates set).
Then my plans changed somewhat expectedly (I didn’t bother waiting for one piece of information), and I ended up “wasting” that ticket, not being able to use it on that day nor able to get a refund for it.
So I ate the cost and learned a $49.27 lesson about planning too far into the future when a couple of key variables are still not in place.
Stupid, stupid mistake. But I’ll never do that again before nailing down the other details.
C) I can plan for the future
I sleep better at night knowing where every penny is, and what my future, planned expenses are.
I really don’t like being surprised with a $3000 car bill or something, and I can plan for how much I should keep in my chequing account for upcoming expenses, how much I can put away into my emergency fund, and how much I need to set aside for things like my travel fund.
Just a girl trying to find a balance between being a Shopaholic and a Saver.
I cleared $60,000 in 18 months earning $65,000 gross/year.
Now I am self-employed, and you can read more about 
I budget because I got caught in a “trap” of my own making – I wanted to pay off my credit card, but it never felt like there was any money left over to make extra payments. I knew I was making a decent salary, so I had to figure out WHERE my money was going. I started setting limits in categories where I tended to overspend (groceries, eating out, clothes, etc.) and voila! Suddenly I had extra money left over at the end of the month.
I’ve been on a written, down-to-the-penny budget ever since!
What a great post. Your reasons for budgeting were inspiring. When I first read the title of this post I thought to myself- because I have to. You’re right- we don’t have to- we should have our reasons for why we do it. I guess for me it’s because I want to able to afford the things that are important to me.
I budget for exactly the same reasons you do. I budget backwards as I call it because instead of taking the amount I earn and distributing it, I take the amounts I need and come up with what I need to earn. I can control how much I earn though, so budgeting backwards wouldn’t work so well on a fixed income. I do still recommend trying it for those on a fixed income because you’ll look at things differently and something may pop out at you. I also budget backwards because more times than not, it tells me I need to be earning more and so I work harder.
So I can take a world trip next year and not have to worry about running out of money….. It’s save, save, save time. Every penny. By bf is much better at it than me but I am learning!
I budget basically because my income is pretty low, so if I didn’t keep track of every penny, I’d either end up going over budget all the time (this, admittedly, happens a lot anyway) or I’d end up totally living paycheque to paycheque with nothing going into savings, which isn’t cool either! Budgeting keeps me sane.
I budget to keep my sanity! 😉 We have 4 kids on a tight budget and it makes me (and my kids) feel secure that bills are always paid on time, there’s always plenty of food in the house, & money set aside for a rainy day!
I don’t budget per say, I try to keep track with my spending and usually just go with the flow. As long as I don’t break my golden rule “spend less than I earn” everything is O.K. My only problem is when large unplanned expenses happen, I can usually handle them but they really kick my finances in the butt.
I need to start budgeting again, but it all went out the window with this silly internship.
I used to budget because I had enough money coming in and I wanted to control it, as well as use the extra money in a smart way by investing, or something like that.
Now that I don’t have enough money coming in, it’s much less fun. Budgeting stresses me out so I avoid it. I need to stop that.