Dear Budget: Reason #3 Why I Hate You : You Don't "Get" Me

As we come to the Top 3 Reason why we hate budgeting. It is really important that in the love/hate relationship with budgeting that we take a look at ourselves. What can we learn from this tumultuous relationship?

That brings us to reason #3: My budget doesn’t get me. But do you get you?

This relationship can’t work if you don’t know yourself, your vision and your values.

Here are a couple of tips to get you started:

• Understand your Money Story. Your money story is all your unconscious beliefs you have about money, how you should earn it, what it means to want it, and what it means to have a lot or a little.

• From that story, determine what you were taught, what you believe and what is true today.

• Goals & Values. Before you can begin to manage your money, you need to identify what is important to you. Then you have a foundation to decide what you want to do with your money.

Start here:

Write down what you want to do in your life and how you want to show up. Do you want to take care of family? Get healthy? Travel? Eat organic? Volunteer and donate your time and money?

Then, go back and look at the last 3 months of ALL your statements and spending. Does your money habits reflect the vision above?

If not, your money, spending and habits are not aligned. No wonder you hate budgeting! That is like wanting to rock stilettos but still buying crocs. Not that there is anything wrong with crocs, unless you want heels.

Just like there is nothing wrong with having food, travel, fun, charity or anything else in your budget as long as that is your heart’s desire.

So before you kick your budget to the curb, do some reflection and make sure your budget knows what you want and that you have set it up to give that to you.

We will talk more about this in the next blog: It’s not you, it’s me. In the meantime, download this free money mindset worksheet to help you get started learning and re-writing your money story.