When I prompted Stackers to share about their budgeting habits, I wasn't expecting a flurry of responses. But my simple question generated such a well of deep sharing that it appealed to the investigative journalist within me. I wanted to consolidate your responses and install some form of structure in hopes that this might help some individual out there.

There are two types of people in the world: those who budget and others who don't. @go replied with a resounding YES while @Satoshis_Code replied with a tentative Roughly. On the other hand, @kytt doesn't keep a budget but feels that he should. @BTCFC used to keep a budget, but now that he feels empowered via Bitcoin, he feels he no longer needs to.

Let's discuss the WHY behind budgeting first. What prompts some people to budget and not others? As someone who studied Finance in school, @TNStacker may be known as the budget guru in his real life. He budgets not only for himself, but for organisations where he volunteers. Perhaps he is accustomed to the need to customise and manage the variables for varied contexts. I guess he must like being methodical.

Other people may not have a finance background but will attest to the power of budgeting. @Undisciplined shares how budgeting helped him achieve various financial goals during his undergraduate days when he had to live off the income he gained from a 20-hour weekly job. Budgeting helps him to be proactive and feel in control of managing his limited finances then. The need to exhibit control was also the impetus towards @TheBTCManual's budgeting practice. He noticed that his savings were getting depleted and turned to budget so that he could deploy funds towards investing.

@nullama has what I feel a novel way of thinking about money. He calculates his hourly/daily/weekly/monthly wage and compares it to his daily/weekly/monthly expenses. I think having your hourly wage written down and staring at you in the face makes you super conscious of the life energy you are exchanging for an activity. Should make it easier to say nope to things that distract you from your long-term goals. After all, time is the most valuable currency we have.

When you are clear about your motivations for budgeting, finding the most appropriate way will require some experimentation but shouldn't be that difficult. @2d uses the popular tool called "You Need A Budget". @q used to use the envelope budgeting method but now turns to https://actualbudget.org. If you want to know more about the envelope budgeting method, you should check out Dave Ramsey's course (2006). After all, this is what instructed @dayOldDonuts on how to use only cash to pay for his transactions. He used to go to the bank and get different denominations of cash so that he could fill up his envelopes accurately. If this sounds like too much work for you, however, In any case, the trusty Excel file works - @criptopanas uses that.

I need to attend to my children soon, but before I end off this musing on an abrupt note, I just want to highlight how important it is to be self-aware of your inclination. If you budget but the one whom you love doesn't, is it a deal breaker for you? @grayruby and his wife seem to have worked out an arrangement that works for them. If neither you nor your partner does budgeting, someone has to be in charge of tracking and eyeballing the family's expenses so that you can release some pressure off the accelerator pedal when the family is burning through their money a bit faster than you would like. @Undisciplined might have some first-hand insights to share with you on this.

Sending 69% happy sats to @siggy47 who is maintaining several territories for our collective good.