tisonlyi

Like the unbudget idea from Baraka above, keep a diary or collect the receipts of your spending every day, then at the end of the month have a look through, add up your spending on necessities, semi-necessities and complete waste. Don't kid yourself as to what ounts and doesn't, it all counts.

Set yourself treats equal to about half the value of what you an cut out, over increasing periods. Week, fortnight, month, quarter, half-year, year.

You'll be amazed how much you waste on aggregate, probably, and from that a drive to budget can be forged.

(it works for weight-loss as well, or did for me, i could see the aggregate effect of all those innocent treats in black and white... sobering.)

__________________
"I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place." - Winston Churchill, 1937 --{ORLY?}--