Budgeting isn't as straightforward as it seems

[Compromise me]

Especially if you have your own family (wife and kids), the need for making budget is very important, I feel it's much easier on someone when all the responsibility the person have is just theirself but when you have other people as your responsibility (maybe you are the breadwinner of your family), then it is very important to work with budget, otherwise you might not be able to even feel satisfied with your income even if the money is considered to be big. A bachelor could have less responsibility and can therefore be able to have more savings and investment even when they don't intentionally keep a budget list. So, based on your status in your family or otherwise, one should be able to know if it's important that they start to work with planned budget or spend without planning.

It is good to keep records of earnings or expenses whether you have family or you are alone, it is a way of managing the budget properly. This is a method that I also follow because of this i always tried to keep my self in budget. I control myself while making spending , but yes sometimes i feel helpless because of sudden incident, it gives me stress because disturbance in one time affect my budget for the long time. At this time everyone's budget is disturbed not because of poor planning but because of uncontrollable inflation. Where no changes occuring in wages, making list of spending is becoming impossible to manage especially for lower income people. They have to now bond to utilise their savings to meet their needs. Means they have nothing left for battling any emergency.

[BitBakerr1]

Budgeting is good, but that would never solve the problem, in cases of inflation your budget will be disorganized because of price flactiation,
But while people keep talking about budget I think it's best to work on increase your source of income instead, use that money to create more money, sacrifice clothes, expensive and unnecessary items for knowledge of skills and capital, and that's why the call it financial freedom, what does budget in this level have to do with someone that is wealthy

You are correct, instead of focusing more on budgeting as a low income earner, what you should do or focus on is how to increase your income.
As a low income earner budgeting will never make you live comfortably because emergency will come up and you will use the money you have budgeted for a particular thing for it.
Budgeting is meant for those who are rich or high income earners to a large extent.

I am not saying that as a low income earner you should not budget, you need to budget because it will actually help you but your focus should not be on that your focus should be on making sure you increase your source of income.

[Stalker22]

I simply believe that if we love doing something in life, we should be well paid for it.
~

Honestly, thats just pure delusion.

The market does not care about your passion.  At all.  Value comes from scarcity and demand.  Thats all.  If three million other people love doing the exact same easy, fun thing you do, the pay is going to be total garbage because your work is financially worthless.  No matter how much you "love" doing it.

You get paid for jobs that most people cant or wont bother to do... not for having fun.  If your passion happens to line up with a high-value skill?  Awesome, you won the lottery.  But expecting high pay just because you enjoy the work is delusional tbvh.

[DubemIfedigbo001]

I simply believe that if we love doing something in life, we should be well paid for it.
~

Honestly, thats just pure delusion.

The market does not care about your passion.  At all.  Value comes from scarcity and demand.  Thats all.  If three million other people love doing the exact same easy, fun thing you do, the pay is going to be total garbage because your work is financially worthless.  No matter how much you "love" doing it.

You get paid for jobs that most people cant or wont bother to do... not for having fun.  If your passion happens to line up with a high-value skill?  Awesome, you won the lottery.  But expecting high pay just because you enjoy the work is delusional tbvh.

That's true, if what you love doing solves no real problem, then there'll be no substantial revenue from it. Your value increases when your product solves real problems and people are willing to pay to utilize it in solving their problems. Although I agree that someone should identify their passion and create value from it. Believe it or not, problems exists everywhere and even any solutions introduced a new problem. The more problems you can solve the more you have the ability to decide your pay

I've not felt more alive and in control of my finances until I started creating budgets for almost every expenses. I saved more and had better investments. Sometimes you ought to be a bit flexible by having floats so that you don't choke yourself, but budgeting kind of allows you to have a clear picture of your cashflow and know how to minimize your excesses.

[Pearl_20]

Good that you've learnt your lesson. Budgeting is a good financial practice if you are paying attention to things. It goes beyond downloading a budgeting app. If you do not differentiate your wants from your needs, you will keep overspending even after budgeting. The best practice will be to discipline yourself no matter your income, so that even when your income increases you do not automatically increase how much you spend on things.

You're right budgeting goes beyond that, having a budgeting app downloaded on your phone without self discipline it will just be as every other app on your phone or you just wasting data on something that doesn't count. Discipline helps you to do the right things from the wrong things, like if you have money you know where to keep them immediately and avoid impulsive buying and like you said without discipline you'll still spend money even with the app downloaded on your phone, so first and foremost is for you to discipline yourself so that even if the money increases or not you know exactly what to do at all times.

[fruktik]

But for low income people, budgeting does not work like that. They budget so that their small amount of income will fit even on their basic needs, while saving can only happen if they earn extra amount but that's only rare to happen. That's the reality with poor people. Budgeting is really a kind of struggle, especially in times when the income isn't enough, or when sudden bills arise that are not included in the budget.

Poor people cannot afford any extra expenses, yet they often make another major mistake: taking out bank loans. They shoulder this burden without even considering the potential consequences of their decision.

Not long ago, I learned that more than half of the population in my country has one or more loans. This means that every second person is in debt to a bank. And guess what? The majority of these borrowers are poor families who cannot afford to buy something like a new washing machine without borrowing money or opting for an installment plan.

[fruktik]

Truly untill you start to pen down your expenses, you wouldn't notice some kind of pattern that are you developing that otherwise if you saw the same pattern outside, you would either laugh or even criticise them for doing it yet you yourself you are exhibiting it and again, it is your income most times that determine how those patterns start and even how they develop without you noticing for so long.

Nevertheless I'm glad you are looking at taking care of yourself health, it is a very wise decision in this days and time and especially with the way the economy is moving, it's best to pay attention to your health and also to your budgeting.

Yes, keeping track of your expenses is a pretty good idea. But why go to all that extra trouble when, in today’s world, everything is already available in your mobile banking app? You just need to go to the "History" tab, where everything is laid out in detail: where, when, and how much. That’s how I personally keep tabs on things. I also have a notification service enabled; whenever I make a purchase, I immediately get an update on my account balance and the amount spent. It’s far more convenient than carrying around a notebook to jot things down. I’ve also picked up a new habit: I now make sure to always take the receipts when I shop—something I never used to do. Why? To keep a handle on my finances and my family budget.

[Tongley]

Truly untill you start to pen down your expenses, you wouldn't notice some kind of pattern that are you developing that otherwise if you saw the same pattern outside, you would either laugh or even criticise them for doing it yet you yourself you are exhibiting it and again, it is your income most times that determine how those patterns start and even how they develop without you noticing for so long.

Nevertheless I'm glad you are looking at taking care of yourself health, it is a very wise decision in this days and time and especially with the way the economy is moving, it's best to pay attention to your health and also to your budgeting.

Yes, keeping track of your expenses is a pretty good idea. But why go to all that extra trouble when, in today’s world, everything is already available in your mobile banking app? You just need to go to the "History" tab, where everything is laid out in detail: where, when, and how much. That’s how I personally keep tabs on things. I also have a notification service enabled; whenever I make a purchase, I immediately get an update on my account balance and the amount spent. It’s far more convenient than carrying around a notebook to jot things down. I’ve also picked up a new habit: I now make sure to always take the receipts when I shop—something I never used to do. Why? To keep a handle on my finances and my family budget.

Yes, you are right and I completely agree with you. But what I do is that after spending the whole day, when I return home at night, I write down in one place where and how much money I have spent. By using this method, I do not have to carry a notebook all the time and I can save myself from the hassle of writing again and again. So I do this work at night and write down all the expenses very accurately.

The method you mentioned, online history, is very good, but in some cases, we have to make transactions with cash and we will not find these cash transactions in the history, so I think it is better to write them in the notebook.

[EarnOnVictor]

Why?

It turns out that our income dictates our expenses.  I realized that because I was earning well each month, I was indulging in more without really noticing it.
So, when you're budgeting, always look at both sides: how much you spend and how much you earn. The latter figure has a much greater impact than most people realize.

I've known this for so long and I don't stress myself over it. There's no budget in my dictionary, but I am a natural conservative person, with a high degree of prudence. First, I discourage frivolous spending and encourage savings and investing. I ensure that a little percentage of my earning take care of the bills. However, if there is a need to adjust by adding a little, I do for comfortability sake, but my spending has never been reckless.

Also, the issue most people have is not the budgeting or planning on how to spend their money but income problem. This is why it's good to increase this to encourage a better living.

[viljy]

~

You're wrong on both counts.
First, inflation doesn't affect your view of your income and expenses; both values rise. Moreover, you'll see true inflation based on average values, based on your own experience.

Actually, for a large part of the population in the real world, expenses are rising, but their incomes are not. In the world of Middle‑earth, it probably happens the way you described: Galadriel’s income, the incomes of the dwarves and hobbits, are rising along with the prices. However, we don’t live there...

Second, if you have an unexpected expense, such as medical expenses, you'll always mark it separately in the app. This way, you can always ignore it when calculating your average monthly expenses. I have plenty of such expenses, and they don't interfere with my overall budget picture.

I didn’t understand that. If you have plenty of such unforeseen expenses, why don’t you include them in the calculation of average monthly expenses? Because when you have plenty of them, it’s no longer quite correct to call them unforeseen.

[aoluain]

It turns out that our income dictates our expenses.  I realized that because I was earning well each month, I was indulging in more without really noticing it.
So, when you're budgeting, always look at both sides: how much you spend and how much you earn. The latter figure has a much greater impact than most people realize.

This is the case for sure, as I like to put it "we always live to the max of our salary".
I can vouch for this because without budgeting in the past I have always lived up to
my salary and when I got a pay rise I never actually had any extra money because
 . . . I lived up to that too.

Its very difficult because every mibute of the day we are bombarded with messages
and advertising on how we need lots of more stuff which we dont actually need.

The trick as per the OP is to create an plan, the difficult part is to stick to it!

[kingstep]

But for low income people, budgeting does not work like that. They budget so that their small amount of income will fit even on their basic needs, while saving can only happen if they earn extra amount but that's only rare to happen. That's the reality with poor people. Budgeting is really a kind of struggle, especially in times when the income isn't enough, or when sudden bills arise that are not included in the budget.

Not long ago, I learned that more than half of the population in my country has one or more loans. This means that every second person is in debt to a bank. And guess what? The majority of these borrowers are poor families who cannot afford to buy something like a new washing machine without borrowing money or opting for an installment plan.

Most of the Fintech companies have borrowers that are mostly young adult that takes up loans from these apps and when it is time to pay back struggle to do so. as a matter of fact, some of them take up these loans knowing fully well that they are not going to pay it back but still remain adamant about their action.

It is very necessary to leave within your means so you don't go borrowing money to sort out something you can afford to do without. imagine borrowing money to buy a washing machine as a young guy that is just starting life out?

[Different patterns]

And that’s one main reason we need to know the importance of bookkeeping and also be disciplined enough to make sure we achieve our plans because earning a lot of money a month from your business doesn’t mean you are going to be rich or you are making profits but when you are able to keep the necessary records and realized how much has been spent and how much has been earned, you will realized that you need to spend wisely and you will effectively set a target or let’s say an amount you cannot spend above because you know if you spend more than that amount, the business will suffer and might affect the business’s profit. So it’s important to keep records and also make sure you are disciplined enough to effect the plans you have made