"Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses."If I had to guess, I would imagine the most common excuses for not budgeting are the following:
- George Washington
- I don't have enough time. As I have pointed out in an article about tracking, you can track all of your income and expenses in less than 5 minutes a day.
- It's boring. News flash: almost all of the routine things we do each day are boring! Yet we somehow manage to commute to work, clean the house, mow the lawn, and pay our bills. Why is that? We do these things because there are long-term social or financial rewards for doing so. Budgeting is no different. While the actual task of budgeting is not exciting, the rewards can be very exciting.
- I don't need a budget. Translation: I'm already making (or saving) enough money. This is probably the best excuse of the bunch. For the person who lives below his or her means, why bother to go through this exercise? There is no doubt that some people can save a lot of money without a budget. The problem is that without a holistic approach to making choices, you are sure to make arbitrary decisions with the money you spend. In other words, a good budget won't necessarily enable you to save more money, but it should allow you to focus your spending on what you really value most.
- It stifles spontaneity. This is an understandable, but unfounded, concern. Contrary to what some people think, you can actually budget for spontaneity. If you like to eat, travel, or do activities without any prior planning (as I do), you can simply budget a certain amount of money for these activities with no particular category. Of course, if you would like to be able to spend unlimited amounts of money doing these things...well, then I would argue this is not spontaneity, but decadence.
- It causes household friction. This is another common misconception, and one that I will specifically address in my next post. If done properly, budgeting should actually help reduce household friction.
