| There are plenty fancy ideas out there for | | | | of it. If I slack off, the numbers won't add |
| personal budget planners. You can use them on | | | | up and nothing really makes sense. I remember |
| your computer or on handheld devices. They | | | | when I was making a ton of money in one of |
| sound like awesome little gadgets except it | | | | those upstart Internet companies; I didn't |
| gives you the idea that owning one will mean | | | | think I needed to worry about budgeting. I |
| you'll somehow have tons of extra money. | | | | was definitely living high off the hog, |
| Excel has one of those programs that let's | | | | though, and I needed to find a way to get my |
| you graph everything out or plot your | | | | finances in order. I made a few notations in |
| progress on pie charts. While they seem fancy | | | | my personal budget planner and, since I was |
| and look cool, you can't make a silk purse | | | | making so much cash, it didn't take long to |
| out of a sow's ear, as my grandmother used to | | | | catch up and be more financially secure. |
| say. In other words, if you don't have the | | | | |
| money to spend, a fancy budget planner won't | | | | Well, as you may imagine, the dot com |
| help you very much. | | | | industry didn't last forever, so I took |
| | | | another position as a systems administrator. |
| I don't think it's half as important if you | | | | I wasn't making as much money and it wasn't a |
| have one of these things than it is to | | | | good time for me. I felt like I never had |
| actually use one. Sometimes they're too | | | | enough money. I thought maybe I wasn't using |
| complicated than they're really worth. I | | | | my budget planner correctly and the bills |
| personally like the idea of a paper log book, | | | | started stacking up. I lost more than a few |
| a nice sharp pencil and maybe a calculator. I | | | | nights' sleep, worrying about the whole |
| like the idea of seeing the numbers all work | | | | thing. After a while, I realized that my |
| out for myself rather than having a computer | | | | personal budget planner was not at the root |
| do it all for me. The computerized budget | | | | of my money problems at all. Rather, I simply |
| planners are too abstract and it makes me | | | | wasn't making enough money to keep up with |
| nervous not to see the numbers right there. | | | | the lifestyle I really wanted to live. |
| | | | |
| I have a great brown leather bound budget | | | | So, I took action and got a second job to |
| planner. It's elegant and, for the most part, | | | | make up the difference. It was a boring job |
| it's easy to use. But I've decided that's not | | | | but it paid pretty well. I quickly found that |
| my real problem when it comes to budgeting. | | | | my finances were much better and I'm back to |
| The problem is my taking the time to make use | | | | doing it the way I once did. |