Profligate.

I've been overspending since school started. It hasn't been the result of any buying binges; I'm still happiest in a pair of hand-me down jeans from my little brother, and my $10 Tracfone is probably currently out of juice in the bottom of the laundry hamper. This is actually bad news: it would be much easier to correct the problem if I could point to one area of my life where I'm messing up, chastise myself, and get back on course. Instead I'm experiencing the far more insidious lifestyle inflation.

I've gotten sloppy. I'm putting money into savings every month, yes, but I've been doing an incredibly slipshod job of tracking my spending lately. I'm falling into some bad habits like buying lunch at least two or three times a week, and I'm hanging out a lot more with the rather spendy crowd of TFAs. I'm getting whatever I feel like eating when I'm at the grocery store instead of trying to plan frugal meals, and I'm just generally less cost conscious.

There are a million justifications for why this is ok. I'm young, have a stressful job, and should go have some fun. Unlike many of my friends here who have tens of thousands of dollars in student loans, I have no debt. I haven't been missing my targets by that much; although, that is in large part due to a small windfall when I learned I was getting paid for attending a follow-up meeting for some professional development. I'm still saving, just not as much.

Truly, I haven't been doing that bad. For September through November, I met my savings goals even though it was a lot tighter than it should have been.This month it just isn't going to happen. Maybe, just maybe, I could make it work if I didn't buy anyone any Christmas gifts, but I'm not willing to do that. Still, it hasn't been a terrible semester, especially because I threw a bonus I got right before Thanksgiving into the house fund, bringing the total over $9,500. I completed my goal of getting my car fund up to $10,000 right on schedule, too.

All of which contributes to that dangerous sense that all of this spending is somehow ok. Some of it is, much of it isn't, and I need to sort out which is which. My unbudget system of paying myself first and then living on what was left and meticulously tracking spending worked well for quite a while, so I wouldn't call the experiment a failure, but it isn't a good fit with how I'm managing my money right now. I need more structures in place to track whether I'm meeting my goals and spending an appropriate amount on both the necessities of life and frivolity. I need more carefully thought through prioritization.

In other words, I need a budget. On January 1st, I'm starting fresh with a new budget for the new year. I'm looking forward to it, actually. I always took a certain geeky pleasure in entering all of my purchases in the free spreadsheet-based version of PearBudget. It's a lot easier to spend without guilt when you know you've budgeted for whatever it is, no matter how silly your want. Plus setting meaningful goals and then achieving them is very fun and fulfilling.

Scratch that: the original PearBudget is alive and well.

Well, I was completely wrong. The Pearbudget worksheet is still available, just a bit harder to find. (Thanks, Mr. Park.) Hooray!

PearBudget is dead! Long live PearBudget!

I've been bad; I quit tracking every penny of my spending a couple of months ago. The time has come to start keeping detailed records again, and the new laptop seemed like the perfect means to do so. Since I have OpenOffice, I thought I'd just pop over to PearBudget to download their lovely worksheet. It isn't fancy, but it does everything I want.

Alas, they don't seem to be offering it anymore. They are touting a new, improved, web-based PearBudget that will cost $3/month once it's out of beta. I hope it's great, it helps people take control of their finances, and the creators make a bundle, but I'm not interested in paying for advanced functionality I don't need.

I briefly considered switching to GNUCash, but I don't have this whole Linux thing figured out yet. Luckily, I have the old PearBudget on my desktop so I can just transfer the file to my new computer. The worksheet contains a message from Charlie Park, the creator, who encourages distributing it as long as you don't charge anything and give proper credit. The old PearBudget was simple, elegant, and oh so convenient. If you ever feel the desire to give it a try, just send me your email address and I'll pass it along.