When you hear the word budget, does it make you nervous? A lot of people feel this way. I know I used to! But let me tell you, having one has changed my entire mindset and my life, so today I’m sharing 5 reasons why you need one. Trust me, it’s all good stuff! You’ll want to dig in to this post.

1 Budgeting is Freedom
Setting boundaries for yourself with your money is actually one of the most freeing feelings. I used to feel like my money was running me, not the other way around. I work hard and so do you, to make money, so we should be in charge of where it goes and how we use it. If you don’t have a budget, you are a slave to your bills every month. Instead, with a budget and setting boundaries, you can organize your bills so they all get paid and you have a specific amount of money set aside for fun things. Otherwise, it’s just messy. Take the time to create a system for your money and you’ll never have to worry about spending too much, or not paying something on time. The boundaries actually create the freedom!

2 Budgeting Creates Peace of Mind
You know those boundaries I was talking about in the first point? Yep, those also create peace of mind for you. Knowing the rules gives you way less to think about. Can you imagine what our country would be like if we had no rules for driving vehicles? It would be way more stressful and everyone would be doing crazy things (well, more than they do now anyways!). Having rules and knowing what they are simplifies things. Once you set your budget and have an amount for each category of your spending, you can happily stay within those limits and delete that worry/stress from your life completely. Bye-bye, stress!

3 It Forces You to be Real with Yourself
You deserve to be honest with yourself. Respect yourself enough to be real about what you can afford to spend on things and what you cannot. Just because you might need to be very modest with your spending in certain categories right now, doesn’t mean you will always need to be “stuck” with that. Don’t even look at your budget as being stuck at all. Get that out of your mind right now. Look at this budget you have now as an opportunity to create your best life. So be totally honest with yourself about your money where you are today, not where you want to be in 5 years. You can’t live like you make $100,000 a year while bringing in $30,000 a year. Living within your means right now means living even better a few years down the road.

4 It Will Make You a Happier Person
Think about how much you worry or are consumed on a weekly basis with money. If you are in a funk feeling like you don’t have a good system or want to live differently financially, you can’t fully let go and be happy. I love writing lists when I start to feel stressed in life of everything on my mind. I write down all of the things that consume my thoughts, positive or negative. Money used to come up a lot. And it was stealing my joy. But when I made a budget for myself and took that huge thing off of my plate, I gained my happiness back in a big way!

5 It’s an Investment in Your Future
I mentioned some of this idea in point 3, but budgeting is an investment in your future lifestyle. For most of us, the extra money we’d like to have in the future won’t just fall into our laps. Unless we win the lottery, we all are going to need to work for that financial security. When you create your budget, setting an amount to add to savings each month is important. Cutting back on unnecessary spending in certain categories to allow for saving is also important. If you feel like you can’t save anything right now because you have debt, then make an aggressive plan to pay off that debt and skip the pedicures at the spa. Do them for yourself at home and make it a fun, relaxing night. Boom, there’s $30 to put into savings. Small sacrifices now could create the difference of you owning your own home in 10 years versus still being all over the place financially at that point. Isn’t that worth it to you? If you’re like me, it is.

If you are ready to start your budget and need a pretty, already organized place to keep track of it all, take a look at The Budget Notebook. It has changed my life for the best!

-Ashley