For those who seem to be against budgeting as they don't want to reduce spending, I'll say that instituting a budget for our family had an interesting effect. It really highlighted how we were spending money on things we didn't really care about as much, so it was very easy to cut there and its resulted in us spending more on the things we do care about. It was a win/win by spending less overall and more on what matters to us.
The other huge benefit to budgeting I've found that hasn't really been mentioned as much is it makes us think about opportunity cost all the time. So we're going to spend $5k on a vacation? Okay, but what we are not spending that $5k on now? Upgrade vehicle, reno, generally entertainment? It forces you to consider trade offs and really puts the big ticket items into perspective.
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