It all starts with a budget

For years, I didn't have a budget. My wife and I just bought what we felt we needed to buy with whatever money we had. For a while it sort of worked. Sometimes we'd run out before we got to some basics like "pay utilities." And we'd get further and further behind, frustrated and confused. Weren't we good people? Didn't we try not to be too extravagant?

The end result was a disaster that I may go into in more detail at a later date. Short version: It will be a long time before anyone ever offers us any sort of credit, or even a checking account, again.

Now we have a budget, and it does pretty well for us. We don't make any more money than we did before, but it goes a long way. The screenshot is above.