Photo by: silent-shot

It rained all last week here in the AZ, and the wife and I passed our fair share of accidents on the road.

Coming from a slightly wetter climate than my wife, these sightings often lead to short conversations between us about driving habits between different states.

The thought I always seem to return to is that when roads are wet they play a trick on you.

Most of the time you feel just as in control as you are on a dry road, and most of the time you might be. But it only takes one awkward puddle, or slick spot, or glare (or another bad driver) to take that control away. And on a freeway that’s all it takes.

The best thing, as most people know,  is to simply give yourself a reasonable buffer between you and other cars.

Some months, for my family,  it’s tempting to live right at our means, or even beyond – but it’s just like hugging a car on the freeway. Most of the time we’ll get through the month just fine, but it only takes one instance of “life” to take that control away.

Try to live within your means and give yourself a bit of a buffer. The more you save each month, the safer you’re driving. You may run into heart pounding situations (that may leave you using colorful language), but you just might have enough room to avoid an emergency.

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!

Photo by: worldislandinfo

My thoughts have hovered around “planning” lately.

Maybe it’s the new year.

It’s incredible the difference a little planning can make in almost anything.

A budget is simply a way to plan what you’re going to spend your 95% on.

When we don’t plan where our money will go, it might go towards our wants before our needs.

We might even spend more than we earn.

When we fail to plan where our paychecks go, they tend to leak out into less important, or irrelevant things.

Budget’s don’t have to be perfect to make incredible improvements in your life – the simplest budget plans are infinitely better than not having any at all. When you learn how to start a budget plan, and stick to it, you set yourself up for a lot more success down the road.

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PS – A huge round of applause for those of  you who signed up for the January 2010 Challenge. I have been quite inspired by how many have signed up.

I hope you’ll email me when the month is over to tell me how you did!

And it’s not too late to start your own first month of budgeting. Just sign up for the emails in the sidebar to the right. It’s wicked easy.