Audio Review: You Need a Budget: The Proven System for Breaking the Paycheck-to-Paycheck Cycle, Getting Out of Debt, and Living the Life You Want by Jesse Mecham

For most people, budgeting conjures up the same feelings as, say, prison and dieting. But your initial instinct couldn’t be further from the truth. You just haven’t budgeted the right way.

You Need A Budget will teach you four simple rules to completely revolutionize the way you think about managing your money. With a budget, you’ll break the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle, get out of debt, and save more money. A liberating, enabling, empowering budget will actually make you feel more free, not more restricted. The YNAB philosophy is centered around these four rules:

Give every dollar a job. Take your cash, checking, and saving accounts and assign jobs to that money. Begin now with what you have on hand. Then follow your plan. Pick your priorities, and make sure your dollars are helping you move closer to the things you care about most.Embrace your true expenses. Look ahead and identify the larger, less frequent expenses that tend to sneak up on you. Break those expenses into manageable monthly amounts. Consider insurance premiums, birthdays, holidays, charitable giving, car repairs, etc. This practice evens out your cash outflows, decreases your stress, and helps you make better decisions.Roll with the punches. Accept the fact that life always changes and you’ll likely always go over budget somewhere. If an unexpected expense comes up and you need to change your budget, just change it. The YNAB philosophy not only tolerates changing your budget, but rather encourages it.Age your money. The goal of this rule is to increase the time between the moment you earn money, and the moment you spend that money. In other words, if you’re going to break the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle, you need to learn to live on money you earned a month or two months or even three months ago.YNAB’s four rules are the pillars of a tried-and-true system that gets you to engage with your money every day. It helps you change your behavior so that you’re proactive and in control of your finances. It’s not about stressing over last month’s statement; instead, you’re looking ahead and actively deciding how you want-and need to build a life of meaning not stress.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

Cause I needed to get a grip on my finances. There is no reason I should be broke with the amount of money I make. I had heard of the software before and even tried it out a couple of times, but it mostly went right over my head. I need someone to go in depth how to use the software and the techniques that it uses.

What I liked

I loved that it went in depth on the techniques that the software uses. It spells it out just like I needed it. I was one of those unfortunate souls that got forced to learn Calculus but no one ever told me how to make and stick to a budget. I graduated with my fancy honors degree and was wished the best of luck.  I can count on one hand the number of times I had to know calculus and my finances speak for themselves they are in such a sorry state. SO I finally found the book that explains each step in detail and how to set up a budget and to follow it. I am hoping that my finances will be decent by the end of the year by following the principals in this book. And yes I got a year’s subscription to the software and guessed hat this time I know what the hell I am doing.

What I did not like

I HATE finance talk. I mean why can’t we just be in a cashless society where we all get what we want but alas. There was nothing that I truly disliked about the book itself. I just hate having to deal with money, and I have stuck my head up my ass for so long that everything now is coated in shit.

This is a book that every first-year college student should be forced to take instead of saying Calculus 2. My calculus class comes in handy SOOOOO MUCH (note the sarcasm). Seriously though financial literacy is a very valuable skill to have especially if you are escaping poverty (like me). Maybe outside of the Appalachians, people learn financial literacy at a young age but not in the mountains. This is the sort of book that I wish I had when I was 18 and had control of my money. This is a book that everyone should read.

Buy Borrow or skip

Do you have a budget system in place? Or are you just winging it as I did for many years?