
Think about July 4th and Labor day weekend.Īlmost 5 months out of the year you’ve got some sort of major holiday that costs you something. Then there are other holidays without presents but you still spend money. You’ve got Halloween costumes and parties to attend in October. You wish you had Christmas Cards this cool #christmaswiththecats2015Īnd Christmas isn’t the only one. Then there’s decorations, food, lights, pictures, drinks, and outfits for your cats (okay maybe that’s just us). You’ve got presents for everyone in your family, and your spouse’s family, and those pesky roommates from college who still send you gifts so you feel obligated to send them gifts back. Birthday’s are nothing compared to Christmas. Holiday Months Require Special Attentionįorget about birthdays. You can’t react when things change and it totally kills you. If one thing goes wrong, then the entire month is blown.Īnd although these expenses may be unexpected, they’re inevitable and we must expect them.īut if you budget month to month you can’t expect the unexpected. When you have tunnel vision and only focus on a single month your budget becomes rigid with little room for flexibility. You’ve got oil changes, water heater repairs, dog bills, birthday presents, dentist appointments, broken arms, and the list goes on and on. Yet it’s detrimental to your financial health if you only think on a monthly basis. Our financial lives default to a monthly basis. We’re taught to think about our lives in terms of months.Įvery month the rent is due, the utility bill is due, the cell phone bill, and on and on.

The problem is that you’re thinking about it all wrong. The problem isn’t that you just suck at managing money.
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They want to pretend that doing money well is easy, and it’s just not. Unfortunately, a lot of financial gurus online don’t talk about this. Sticking to a budget is actually very difficult. Actually, I’m still there in a lot of ways. You go on like this for another month and eventually just give up. You’re getting more and more frustrated because this budgeting thing isn’t working like it’s supposed to. You vow to do better next month and move forward.īut over and over again, you keep getting off. If only you would’ve remembered that earlier. It wasn’t the dog this time, but your brother turned 21, so you had to take him out for a few drinks. Then another month goes by and you’re still blowing the budget. How could you have predicted the dog would get worms and cost you $125 for worm pills? Too bad you’re nowhere close to the budget you set.

And then you barely get two weeks in and realize you’re already off.īut you keep pushing and make it through your first month. Then all of your money problems will be solved and you’ll ride off into the sunset in romantic money bliss.
