Most people don’t budget on a regular basis. Why is that? Well, I think there are a few reasons, and I’ll get to that in a minute. But first, let’s ask why we should budget at all. Can keeping a budget really have a noticeable impact on our finances? If so, shouldn’t budgeting be a standard part of our lives –like making a grocery list?

The answer to all of these questions is, of course, yes.

So back to the original question: why don’t people budget? The main reason is that most people think of budgeting ass-backwards. That is, budgeting is usually understood as simply writing down our income and subtracting all of our expenses with the goal of sticking to that list every month. Besides being an almost impossible task (life happens, right), what is the point of doing this, really? To make you feel bad when you inevitably slip up due to, possibly, no fault of your own? To turn you into a compulsive bean counter? (no disrespect, accountants –much love)

The point, of course, is that having a budget changes you in a very important way –it gets you to start thinking about how you spend your money. When you have a budget, you keep an eye on your money. The problem is that when you manage your budget in the traditional way outlined above, the result, more often than not, is the “gym membership syndrome” – you go full on for a couple of months and then burn out.

What I am getting at is that budgeting should be about the process! It’s about what that budget can teach you regarding your spending habits. The goal then becomes refining your spending habits overtime rather than consuming yourself with counting pennies and ultimately adding so much stress to your life that you give up budgeting altogether.

This isn’t a revolutionary idea. Budgeting with the ol’ spreadsheet (if you’re persistent enough) will help you identify (and avoid) wasteful spending. This method, however, quickly turns into accounting –getting those numbers just right becomes the center of it all, and in some cases might even give you a false sense of accomplishment. Again, this can be fun for a couple of months… but it doesn’t last.

It’s just that there hasn’t been an effective way to pin down wasteful spending without creating a budget and refining that budget until you start to get some idea of where all your money is going. Ask any financial expert and they’ll tell you that it takes several months to get your budget “right” –that is, most people have to experiment with their budget for awhile.

So we were thinking about all of this when we decided to develop our budget app, Budgetable. We aren’t out to reinvent budgeting. Instead, we wanted to build a tool that helps you think about budgeting in a different way.

In addition to giving you a high level overview of your finances, Budgetable will intelligently analyze your spending patterns –it will get to know your habits (anonymously), in other words. In return, and without judging you , Budgetable will bring to your attention potentially wasteful spending patterns.

For example, if you stop by the convenience store every morning on your way to work, Budgetable might suggest that you alter your routine in the name of saving money.

We’re very excited about this app and we think you’ll really love it. You can be one of the first people to try Budgetable by requesting an invite.