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Technology/The Right Tool, (sdf.org), 07/17/2018
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Since the earliest dollar I can recall earning, I've been
miserable at managing my money. Without getting too winded,
let me just note that I've read all sorts of things on the
subject, tried all sorts of systems, and basically driven
myself crazy trying to be good at something I'm not.
About 1.5-2 years ago, I threw my hands in the air and just
gave up trying. My wife was not pleased, but looking back
she was quite patient. It was the place where I was at
mentally and spiritually; I was just through trying to
fight. My experience had been that no matter how hard I
tried and no matter what kind of money I made, we were
always living on the edge of our income.
Oddly enough, things didn't get a whole lot worse. I was
flying by the seat of my pants and everyone in the family
came with me. We spent when we felt like we needed to, and
often when we felt like we wanted to. We didn't keep track
anything, and didn't really plan anything. We weren't acting
in an extravagant or opulent manner, we were just doing our
best without any direction.
Not oddly, things also didn't get a whole lot better. We
have been able to accomplish some financial contortionism
in the same no-budget time period, but those actions were
once-and-done, and not long-term effective at ameliorating
our situation. For a few weeks, I've been feeling like it's
time to get back on the budgeting bandwagon. Today I
started.
In the past, I've used all kinds of tools to attempt to
manage a budget. Most frequently, I've fallen back on a
spreadsheet. And so, it shouldn't be shocking to hear
that I fired up a spreadsheet this morning and got to work.
I didn't get far before it hit me: I was spending time and
energy worrying about the mechanics of the spreadsheet and
not really focusing on the budget. The tool I was using was
too powerful for the job, and the extravagance was a
complete distraction.
I thought to myself, "this is like using a backhoe to get
rid of a couple weeds in the yard."
Before anyone gets too defensive, I have absolutely no
problem with the concept of using complex tools to
accomplish tasks; a spreadsheet might be just the right
budget tool for someone that isn't me. But for me, it's too
much. Almost everything is too much. I'm just too easily
distracted.
So, having taken a few steps down the well-trodden path of
budget failure again, I did what any reasonable person in
my position would do; I fired up a text editor in an xterm
and set to work making a plain-text budget. My new goal is
to budget with a piece of paper and a calculator- in my
case, the piece of paper is what I print after first laying
it out in a basic text editor.
My wife, who is elated that I'm interested in a budget at
all, is very supportive. We sat and worked on things for
about 1.5 hours this afternoon. Our goal is to eliminate the
last of our debt and get out of the cycle entirely. Our
tools will be our hands, brains, and a calculator (if you
don't count the text editor and printer.) And for good
measure, I'm going to go pull some weeds by hand this
evening to celebrate.
