Is it hard for you to budget?

Nope, and I am poor too was poorer in the past.

I did a envelope thing. Once I account for my bills I divide up the remainder (yes, I used cash for this) and place a amount I get per day in one of 30/31/28 envelopes. So I would need to save up a few envelopes if I needed new shoes.

It was hard but It made it so I always had at least I had a new envelope with 20 bucks a day to open.

When I was a teen my mom got survivors benefits. We would get about 1,900 on the third of the month. It was gone in a week so we had to do less then legal things for food for the rest of the month. We should have been fine on that amount for the entire month. She just got off on shopping and eventually found herself into the pawn-shop trap. My Super-Nintendo spent more time on a shelf then it did with me. But every month she would pull it out of pawn only to be put back in a week later. She got 25 bucks for it and it took 50 to get it out.

Ramble, Ramble.

But yeah. I would use daily envelopes so I would always have money on the day before I was paid.

I don’t know if it is hard or easy but will soon find out. I’ve recently retired and will need to work with Social Security income and will have to take a measured withdrawal from our IRA accounts.

The way things look, I’ll be broke by the time I’m 80.

Yes, it is incredibly difficult for me to make a budget and stick to it. I have tried many, many times over the years and seriously never succeeded. My husband on the other hand is great at it. He manages every cent that comes in to the household and does so remarkably. Some how we always have enough to get by even with some left over to put away. I don’t know how he does it, but I am glad he can and does!

I’ve been doing it ever since i went to college so it is an ingrained skill.

I figure out my yearly income and then my fixed expenses and then the flexible ones, like entertainment, charitable contributions, clothes, and travel. If it starts to look like the US gov’t’s budget, I make adjustments in the flexible areas.

I am also vigilant in the use of my credit card and use it only enough to be able to pay it off monthly on time.

It helps that I have never considered shopping to be therapeutic and never understood the charm of designer labels. A pair of jeans is a pair of jeans.

For planned things, I have no problem keeping a budget.

I did not schedule my car accident, nor did I plan my layoff back in ‘09. Those types of things are why I’m perpetually scrambling; I can never save up enough to weather those storms before the shit hits the fan again.

I never really budgeted. When I was making very little money it probably would have been better if I had, because then when I was not working at all I ran out of money pretty fast.

What I do is spend very little, and then when I go to buy something I decide whether I have the money already to buy it. Of course some monthly expenses are a constant, like rent, utilities, gas, etc. so, I tally those up, add a little extra for unexpected and make sure I can reasonably afford everything and save. I never really budget extra spending money though for travel or a purchase like a TV or computer or even clothing, things like that. I just buy them if I can afford them from savings.

I am the retail industry’s worst nightmare. I buy very little. I just don’t need it. And I have a hard rule of not buying products made in china which is very limiting. (Try it some time.) I can afford anything I want. Maybe that is why I don’t need to buy it.
I will admit I enjoy going to GoodWill , not because I have to, I go because I want to. I figure the world does not need more junk or to kill more trees, or suck more oil out of the ground when there are perfectly good items already sitting on a shelf.