RSSDo I Need A Budget, Part 1
Jan 21
Most people think of a budget as something poor people use to make sure they don’t buy anything fun, or a way to keep your wife from buying clothes, shoes, and handbags. That’s surely not the case. Don’t think of a budget as a chain that binds or enslaves, but as a navigation system that guides us to our desired destination in the most expeditious fashion.
Without a road map or a navigation system, we may never get where we intend to go. Why don’t you try it. Get in your car and go to 217 Summit Blvd, Space F1, Birmingham, AL 35243. Don’t ask for directions. Don’t go to Google Maps or MapQuest, or anything like that. Don’t use your Garmin, TomTom, or Magellan. Don’t use your car’s built in Navigation system. Don’t even use the antiquated gas station map. Just get in the car and go. The vast majority of people won’t be able to find their way to the desired location. But using any of the aforementioned tools, most of us could find our way directly to the Apple Store at The Summit.
That’s how it is with money. Most people want to have lots of money, or at least enough to pay their bills and live comfortably. For most Americans, this includes buying food, clothing, houses, and cars. It also includes retirement & sending our children to college. However, many of us struggle to get to our desired destinations safely. For lack of navigation, we take many unplanned detours. This causes us to get where we’re going later than we’d planned. Or worse, we never get there.
On the way to shelter, we get lost in foreclosure. On the way to transportation, we get stuck in repossession. On the way to higher education, we end up in forbearance. Just trying to get to food and clothing, many of us get wrecked by bankruptcy.
A proper road map will ensure you get where you intend to go. If you follow the map. Don’t be the guy who, when his navigation system says, “Make a U-turn,” keeps going straight because he knows better than the plan. Use some foresight and chart your course wisely. Then see your way to your final destination.
Think about what you want to do next month. You want to eat, pay the rent or mortgage, pay the utility bills, put gas in the car, and buy a birthday present for your little cousin, Nay-Nay. So you look at the money you have in your hand, and say, “How can I do these things with what I have?” Let’s say you have $2,000 in hand from last months income.
1. The rent or mortgage payment is probably already decided for you, so you allocate $800 of the $2000 for shelter.
2. You think about what you want to eat, and mark $350 of the remaining $1200 for food.
3. You know it’s winter, and you’re not chopping wood for the fireplace, so you set aside $350 of the remaining $850 on utilities.
4. You then set aside $200 for the gas guzzling SUV and that leaves you with $300 to spoil little Nay-Nay, and/or save for the future.
That wasn’t that hard. Was it? Did it feel like bondage? Did it make you feel poor? No, it probably didn’t. What did it do? It gave you control over that $2000. It made sure those five things you planned to do got done. You gave each dollar a job, and put them to work.
I know you have more bills than that, but this is just an example of how it’s done. The point is to make your money work for you, rather than getting worked over by the lack of money you have at the end of the month and there are still things left undone. This is how we stay on course at the Black’s house. We don’t fear the weather, the traffic, or the state troopers. We know that if we handle our business, and stay the charted course, we will most definitely reach our destinations.
So the answer to “Do I need a budget?” is a resounding YES. If you have money, you need a budget.