Photo from: ffffound

When you build your own budget, it can be as simple or as complicated as you want.

The more categories you add, the more control you’ll take, and the more information you’ll have to make better decisions in the future. Having more categories also makes it easier to find leaks in your paychecks.

It doesn’t take long to find your own comfort zone once you start.

So, how simple can you make a budget?

The ultimate purpose of starting and following a budget is to help you live two main principles: Live Within Your Means, and put your Needs Before Wants.

The simplest budget plans can be as simple as three categories:

Needs, Savings, and Wants.

Savings (even a little) will help you live within your means – and funding your Needs first makes sure you won’t get into trouble. And Wants are important too, just not as important.

Everything else is just fine tuning your unique personal budget to your unique life.

Photo by: Gilles Gonthier

If I learned anything from elementary school, it’s that groundhogs have the cosmic ability to predict how long winter will last depending on their shadow.

This supernatural event only happens on the 2nd of February every year. If the groundhog sees his shadow he goes back down his hole to hide from six more weeks of winter. The universe will have spoken.

We have no ability to change whether winter will last another six weeks or not – that is up to the cosmic groundhog – but you do have the ability to choose to follow a budget for the next six weeks. Try signing up for One Month of Budgeting for some extra help:

If you’re reading this in a reader, you can click through here to see the form.

(Ok, the One Month of Budgeting emails only last for five weeks, but you still get six emails.)

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PS – I was going to include a bunch of mildly obscure references to the movie Groundhog Day, to drive my wife nuts, but I deleted them.

Oh what the heck:

Watch that first step… it’s a doo-hoo-sie! Am I right, or am I right? Right? Right?

Photo by: emdot

WithinMeans dot com is getting older every week.

Today I wanted to re-visit three of my favorite posts so far:

1. My favorite post: A Strong Budgeting Foundation

When I was done with this post, I almost felt like everything had come together on its own.

The picture, the idea, the structure – it all seemed to say exactly what I was excited about that week.

2. Most proud of: A New Perspective on Budgeting

Is it possible to be proud of a post about how I need to be more humble? Seems like that would negate the whole concept.

3. Highest hits: Burn!

Not sure if I should be proud of this or not.

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Thanks again for all of your readership, subscriber-ship, comments, and budgeting efforts!