A Week-to-Week Personal Budget

It's all about control

The only reason I've ever fallen behind financially was because I wasn't keeping track of what I was doing. I didn't have control of what was going on with my money. In this case, knowledge is control. Knowing how much money you have, and for what, gives you the control you need to stay "in the black". NOT knowing leads to forgetting: forgetting what you've already purchased, forgetting that big trip to Target or Walmart 3 days ago, forgetting how much you've spent over the past 4 days, etc. All this forgetting leads to guessing: guessing how much money you have left, guessing how much you've spent, and assuming that you have enough, when you're not really sure.

All of that forgetting and guessing comes crashing down when your account becomes overdrawn, and when you finally see how much more you've spent than you thought, and when you see how much less is left than you thought. This is when you start to feel the lack of control. It can make you feel angry, like a failure, depressed, stressed, distraught, hopeless, or even resigned (to the "fact" that you'll always be broke).

But it doesn't have to be that way! Getting back that control is not always easy, but it is always worth it!