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So I have a question for you.

Have you started to keep a budget yet? I’ve really been hammering this topic lately more than another other single personal finance topic.

For the last two weeks, I’ve really highlighted why I think YNAB is the best tool to create and stick to a budget. I realized that I had been spending so much time mentioning YNAB but I hadn’t really gone in depth about why it’s my favorite way to budget.

That’s why I decided to spend one week talking bout why their software is my favorite software for budgeting. Then last week, I talked about why the method they use works so well with the software they use.

But now I want to really emphasis a point that I think is the most important thing to consider as you make improvements to your finances.

That is: The tool doesn’t matter, only the method.

So I think that creating a budget every month is critical to finding success with your finances. In fact, I spend so much time talking about my favorite budget tool, YNAB, that last week I decided that I would go a little more in depth and write about why I love their software so much.

This week, I’m going to stick with the YNAB theme but instead of talking about their software, I wanted to talk about the method that they’ve built their software on.

Now before I go any further, I want to convey how important these rules are for anyone. These rules are not just important for someone that’s using the YNAB software, but for anyone looking to stick with a budget.

I want to repeat something that I think is really important.

The tool you use to manage your money doesn’t matter. Your consistency in working in your budget and your willingness to get back up when you fall off the wagon matters way more.

I’ve spent a lot of time talking about why I absolutely love YNAB and that it’s my favorite tool to budget. But I’m always just mentioning it while trying to drill down on another subject, so I wanted to take a little more time and explain why it’s my software of choice.

Look, it’s way more important that you choose a tool and take action. Taking action with an imperfect tool is better than not taking action while trying to find what’s going to be perfect for you. No matter how hard you search, no tool will be 100% perfect.

But until I find something better, and I’m sure I’ll continue to kick the tires on other methods, I’ll keep recommending YNAB.

Over and over again it’s been said that money can’t buy happiness. I think a more accurate statement would be that money can’t buy fulfillment.

I think that money can buy happiness quite a bit. It can buy a life changing experience on a trip that you’ve always wanted to go on. It can buy a new computer that you use for your creative work that makes you happy every time you use it. It can buy you new clothes that make you feel nice when you’re dressing up for a date.

But it can’t buy fulfillment.

Hey there readers, as I’m writing, I’ve just finished my first week back at school where I teach junior high band.

It’s always really nice to be on break with Katie, my wife, and our two small ones, but it’s exciting to get back to work and see my school kids and my coworkers that I have a blast with each day.

One thing that being on break for me has meant, is that I get a lot more freedom to really dive into creation when it comes to my blog.

Well, it’s that time of year again. It seems like everyone is talking about goals and resolutions for the new year. Except, this time, we’ve upped the ante and are not just talking about what we’re going to do in the new year, but what we’re going to do in the next decade.

I’m really glad that I had money invested in the stock market during the housing crash in 2009. I was able to watch my investment plummet, but I knew enough about how this works to know that I should leave it alone. So, like many people that were invested during that time, I saw my money lose half it’s value as it was cut in half.

I grew up watching my grand dad, Joe, invest in the stock market. As a kid, I still remember him watching CNBC for the latest stock information go across the stock ticker. He had this notebook that he would update his prices on to keep track of his investments. It drove my grandmother nuts because she was convinced that he would lose all of their money.

Ok, so I have this bad habit. I’m someone who is really bad about researching something to death before committing to anything. I don’t just drive my wife nuts, I drive myself nuts. I actually have discovered that I think it’s because I’m an enneagram 6, which really does explain a lot about why I am the way I am(if you don’t know your enneagram number, I highly recommend that you find out).

So all of that too say that I’ve tried a bunch of different budgeting methods out there.

One of the coolest experiences I will ever have was when Katie and I got to build our house. Well, we didn’t build it, we watched it being built; but it was a new construction in a new neighborhood and we got to watch the whole thing go up. We had being married two years […]

In my last post, I talked about how terrible I can be when it comes to dropping by the drive through line on my way home. It can spell disaster for our budget. One night isn’t any big deal at all, but when we’re doing it night after night, it turns into a big problem. Luckily, […]