I stopped keeping a budget of any kind for the past several years, but now I’m moving to a simpler way of budgeting. The tedious ritual of tracking every penny eventually feels meaningless. Perhaps a budget is like financial training wheels: useful in the beginning, but meant to come off eventually.
Here were my reasons for letting go:
- After years of budgeting, better spending choices become second nature. You know what a frivolous expense looks like and are used to delaying gratification. With these habits in place, the budget itself becomes an unnecessary formality.
- If the purpose of budgeting is to reach stability, there comes a time when that stability is achieved and the tool has fulfilled its purpose.
- Budgeting often comes with a scarcity mindset, where you risk being penny wise and pound foolish. Shifting toward abundance means taking calculated risks, investing in yourself, and learning generosity.
I asked ChatGPT for other perspectives on quitting a budget as one matures:
- Trust in disciplined instincts. Over time, spending patterns balance themselves without micromanagement.
- Shift from scarcity to sufficiency. Maturity recognizes that resources ebb and flow.
- Focus on value, not price. Buy what truly serves your life, not what fits a category.
- Emotional simplicity. Constantly tracking numbers breeds stress; letting go brings peace.
- Built-in frugality. With age, impulsive desires fade, making guardrails less necessary.
- Time is worth more. Energy and attention matter more than squeezing every cent.
- Confidence in reserves. Habits and savings create a natural buffer.
- Greater clarity of priorities. With maturity, money follows values without a spreadsheet.
- Life feels less transactional. Stewardship and gratitude replace ledgers.
- Spiritual dimension. Trust in providence eases the need for control.
I also asked for counterarguments, and the case for lifelong budgeting is strong:
- Clarity prevents drift and keeps lifestyle creep in check.
- Guard against self-deception; numbers reveal truths we might prefer to ignore.
- Adaptation to change. Recessions, medical bills, dependents all shift the equation.
- Accountability anchor. Writing it down adds structure memory alone cannot provide.
- Intentional stewardship. Budgets align money with higher purposes.
- Wealth management scales up. More resources require more oversight.
- Legacy and responsibility. Budgets shape how you provide for others.
- Efficiency of resources. Even the wise can waste; budgets channel surplus toward good use.
- Defense against temptation. Desires do not disappear.
- Peace of mind. Tracking reduces anxiety by turning the unknown into something tangible.
Awareness of both perspectives encourages a more flexible approach. I'll lay out the one that fits my current circumstances.
After a recent career change, my income has dropped significantly. The mathematics of compounding makes every leak costly: small losses today become large ones across decades. With perhaps forty years of earning ahead, I need to plug the holes now. At five percent annual growth, a dollar saved today becomes seven by the time I retire.
My spending has improved with age, but one category remains unruly: food.
Rejecting modern budget tools
I will not return to tools like Mint, which require constant maintenance and worse, represent an invasion of financial privacy. In recent years I have moved deliberately toward digital sovereignty, and there is no going back to the naivete of exposing my finances to corporations or governments.
Dave Ramsey’s cash envelope system always appealed to me, but I resisted for the sake of credit card rewards. That objection no longer holds. Cash back is part of the larger trap of consumer spending on credit.
- The savings from cash back are an illusion. You earn two percent while processing fees eat up three, a cost that merchants pass on to you. Five percent categories can really seem like a free lunch, but they drain mental energy and often encourage more frivolous spending. Better to support merchants who refuse cards or add surcharges that expose the real cost.
- We can imagine an ideal of an “atomic economy”, where the atom is the individual. Payments move with minimal friction between individual producers and consumers, without financial middlemen. Bringing this vision to reality will require much effort, especially for online commerce. Where these principles can be put into practice today is in meatspace with cash: sourcing food from local farmers and paying friends for repairs.
- Cash back is also a kind of “poor tax.” Only those with years of good credit history qualify for premium rewards, yet everyone pays higher prices.
A hybrid cash envelope system
Since food is my only problem area, I plan to use a single cash envelope. At the same time, I want a system that works for both cash and credit. I intend to move more purchases to places that do not accept cards, like the employee-owned WinCo in my area, but I still want flexibility for online niche food purchases, restaurants, or the occasional convenience run.
The simplest way is to dedicate a single credit card to food purchases. Others could replicate this across more categories, as long as each has a separate card. At the end of each month, you tally both the envelope and the card statement, and now you have a working hybrid cash envelope system!
The main drawback is less visibility during the month. Overspending could sneak up before the tally is done. A rollover budget helps: spend too much and the next month tightens, spend less and gain a surplus for later. The rhythm balances itself.
This is all theoretical for now, but in October I will test it in practice. I plan to post a follow-up to report how it works. I hope this experiment inspires others to try new approaches to budgeting and share what they learn.