zen), not even hyacinths to feed the soul. You’ll have to rediscover the soul-feeding properties of dandelions (which you probably preferred when you were a kid, anyway.) This baseline budget doesn’t have much room for emergencies. If your VCR breaks, it’s going to stay broken. You’ll live.

Knowing your baseline budget expense total should be

Budgets are for people with predictable income, fairly predictable expenses, and the former larger than the latter, right? What good will a budget do if you don’t have enough money to go around, and you never know when more is coming in?

Suppose you have a hole, or lots of holes, in your wallet. Maybe your wallet is falling apart, but you can’t afford a new one. Would you ignore the holes, and the money falling out until you can afford a new wallet?

The times when it’s hardest to make a budget are also the times when you need a budget the most. For one thing, if you don’t know exactly what your minimum expenses are, let alone your comfort zone budget, you can easily fall into the trap of thinking that when the next big check comes, everything will be fine. Then next big check is too often spoken for before it comes, and you wonder what happened. It is better to look squarely at your expenses than to blindly try to cover them as the money comes in.

If your income is sporadic, insufficient, or both, the most important thing you need to figure out is: What is the minimum amount of money you need every month to survive. In other words, make a baseline, or survival level, budget. How much money does it take to keep oatmeal in the cupboard, the electricity turned on, and your landlord from throwing your things out on the sidewalk. No lattes, no pizza (delivered or frozen), not even hyacinths to feed the soul. You’ll have to rediscover the soul-feeding properties of dandelions (which you probably preferred when you were a kid, anyway.) This baseline budget doesn’t have much room for emergencies. If your VCR breaks, it’s going to stay broken. You’ll live.

Knowing your baseline budget expense total should be

’t afford a new one. Would you ignore the holes, and the money falling out until you can afford a new wallet?

The times when it’s hardest to make a budget are also the times when you need a budget the most. For one thing, if you don’t know exactly what your minimum expenses are, let alone your comfort zone budget, you can easily fall into the trap of thinking that when the next big check comes, everything will be fine. Then next big check is too often spoken for before it comes, and you wonder what happened. It is better to look squarely at your expenses than to blindly try to cover them as the money comes in.

If your income is sporadic, insufficient, or both, the most important thing you need to figure out is: What is the minimum amount of money you need every month to survive. In other words, make a baseline, or survival level, budget. How much money does it take to keep oatmeal in the cupboard, the electricity turned on, and your landlord from throwing your things out on the sidewalk. No lattes, no pizza (delivered or frozen), not even hyacinths to feed the soul. You’ll have to rediscover the soul-feeding properties of dandelions (which you probably preferred when you were a kid, anyway.) This baseline budget doesn’t have much room for emergencies. If your VCR breaks, it’s going to stay broken. You’ll live.

Knowing your baseline budget expense total should be

trap of thinking that when the next big check comes, everything will be fine. Then next big check is too often spoken for before it comes, and you wonder what happened. It is better to look squarely at your expenses than to blindly try to cover them as the money comes in.

If your income is sporadic, insufficient, or both, the most important thing you need to figure out is: What is the minimum amount of money you need every month to survive. In other words, make a baseline, or survival level, budget. How much money does it take to keep oatmeal in the cupboard, the electricity turned on, and your landlord from throwing your things out on the sidewalk. No lattes, no pizza (delivered or frozen), not even hyacinths to feed the soul. You’ll have to rediscover the soul-feeding properties of dandelions (which you probably preferred when you were a kid, anyway.) This baseline budget doesn’t have much room for emergencies. If your VCR breaks, it’s going to stay broken. You’ll live.

Knowing your baseline budget expense total should be

hing you need to figure out is: What is the minimum amount of money you need every month to survive. In other words, make a baseline, or survival level, budget. How much money does it take to keep oatmeal in the cupboard, the electricity turned on, and your landlord from throwing your things out on the sidewalk. No lattes, no pizza (delivered or frozen), not even hyacinths to feed the soul. You’ll have to rediscover the soul-feeding properties of dandelions (which you probably preferred when you were a kid, anyway.) This baseline budget doesn’t have much room for emergencies. If your VCR breaks, it’s going to stay broken. You’ll live.

Knowing your baseline budget expense total should be

zen), not even hyacinths to feed the soul. You’ll have to rediscover the soul-feeding properties of dandelions (which you probably preferred when you were a kid, anyway.) This baseline budget doesn’t have much room for emergencies. If your VCR breaks, it’s going to stay broken. You’ll live.

Knowing your baseline budget expense total should be liberating. Hopefully, it doesn’t take as much to get by as you thought.

If, on the other hand, your baseline budget expense is more than the amount of money you have coming in most months, you may need to find a better job. You may even need an additional job. Your spouse or your teenagers may need to pitch in more. If you’re working but the pay is slow coming in, such as free-lance work, you need to find a way to collect or find work that pays what it promises. If you’re a student, you’ll have to work something out with financial aid, borrow from your parents, or take a lighter load and work more. Or take in another roommate to help with the rent.

No matter how sporadic your income is, or how broke you feel, it’s better to face your money troubles square on than to feel like you are slowly going under day by frustrating day. Making a realistic budget is the first, brave step to taking charge of your money.