(Don't) Create a Budget

The Simple Approach

Since the casual budgeter might be spending from one to two checking accounts and multiple credit cards, there’s not a simple place to go to see how much has been spent and how much remains at any point in time (which is unfortunate, because when you're grocery shopping, you don’t usually have an updated copy of your budget). At the category level, since you don’t know how much is left in your entertainment budget when the time comes to go out to dinner, you just do it anyway. If the casual budgeter is lucky, he or she looks at the budget at the end of the month to what was done, but by that time it’s too late.

There’s a simpler approach to managing spending. Since behavior is shaped by structure, DebtGoal focuses on creating a financial structure that makes it easier to understand where you are so you can change your behavior accordingly.