On average your housing costs probably run about 30% of your take home pay. Your other bills which include utilities, credit cards, etc. also run about 30% of your take home pay. It probably takes another 30% to run your household and if you are lucky you can stash remaining 10% in a savings account.

What are your percentages? Do you know? That's problem. Most people run their budget out of their wallet.

There is that hideous word "Budget". Many people compare operating their finances with a budget to having a ball and chain attached to their wallet. They won't be able to get anything they want for rest of their lives.

Let's see if following scenario fits you:

You get paid. You write out your bills. You give your spouse some money. You wait for next payday to get some more money so you can do same thing.

You may not realize it but if you are doing this you are spending a lot more money than you need to.

Most of people I work with have no idea how much money they make or how much they owe. While money may be important to them it is way to much trouble to learn how to manage it. This is very reason there were $1.5 million bankruptcies in this country last year.

I can almost guarantee that if you are trying to run your finances like scenario above at some point you are going to run into problems. It simply can't work.

The main reason for this is that you never get a broad picture of where you are financially. You pay bills and hope you have enough money to buy your groceries and put gas in car until next payday.

Most people can add and subtract. That's all there is to a budget. If you aren't willing to take time then living paycheck to paycheck will be with you rest of your life.

I call this "Financial Complacency" which simply means that you know you need to manage your money better but aren't willing to do what's necessary. Here are a few excuses I hear to justify this:

Now let's talk about how much money you have to cover your household expenses after you pay all of those bills. Your household expenses would include your groceries, car gas, school lunches, and all of other stuff that it takes to run a household. Do you have enough to pay this bill?

All to often, people tend to pay their bills and try to live on what's left. This never works unless you have enough money left to cover these at home expenses. The grocery bill will always run about same, you will always need about same money for gas, etc. In other words, you need enough to live on.

I have seen this time and time again. Another bill is made and money comes out of household budget because there is no money available in any other category. Then what happens?