Personal Finance Friday - The Freedom of a Budget!

I think the popular perception of a budget is a bunch of chains wrapped around you weighing you down, keeping you from spending money, just dragging you down from living the life you want to live!

Ohh but I come to harold the truth! A budget will set you free my friends!

How?! You may ask!

By giving you control! Freedom is the ability to control your destiny. A budget gives you the information and tools you need to make the decisions to get you to the places you want to go!

Here's a little secret... you ready? Just because you have a budget doesn't mean you need to follow it.. (Gasp!) Its true, you can break your budget, it’s your money. But guess what? With a budget you at least KNOW you are breaking your budget, you know that by doing X that you won't be able to do Y later, and sometimes that's perfectly fine.

It’s popular in our culture today, to bury our heads in the sand, put our fingers in our ears and yell at the top of our lungs, "I don't hear you! I don't hear you!" when it comes to facing reality. Many people think, if you don't have a budget and don't know what's going on, then it’s okay, out of sight out of mind, if I don't think about the bad things, they won't come. I know those people probably won't hear this over their yelling, but you're wrong. Reality is reality, math is math, and if you spend too much money you aren't going to magically end up in a better situation.

Just like with all things in our life, embrace the truth, it comes with a little pain up front but liberation in the end. Create a budget! Understand why and how you spend your money! It’s the first step to getting to where you want to go! And if you have one, let people know, give yourself a pat on the back, celebrate that you've made a good decision!

(Okay, I'm putting my pom-poms down and stepping off of my soap box now.)