Heard someone brag about their 'zero budget' and it rubbed me wrong

I was at a coffee shop in Austin and this guy was telling his friend he doesn't budget, he just 'spends mindfully'. Tbh, that sounds like a fancy way to avoid tracking anything. I tracked every dollar for 6 months straight and paid off $2,300 in credit card debt. Does anyone else get annoyed when people act like budgeting is for people who can't handle money?

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lunah861mo ago

The zero budget thing always gets to me too. I tried the "mindful spending" approach for about two months and ended up eating out way more than planned. What actually worked was I started using cash envelopes for the first week of each month, just for food and gas. It forced me to see exactly where my money was going without all the fancy terms. After three months of that, I paid off a $400 dental bill I had been ignoring.

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the_jennifer1mo ago

The cash envelope thing is brilliant... I tried that for groceries once and ended up with a stash of dimes and nickels I used to buy a pack of gum on the last day of the month.

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