Bud Jet

The subtitle of this post should be: How I have successfully managed to avoid incorporating any money management systems in my adult life to date.

That’s an uncomfortable revelation.

I am triggered by the word “budget” in the same way I was triggered by the word “maths” in my adolescence.

Misshapen demons of indeterminate shape and size would arise in a mist in my head when I heard either of these words. There was something vaguely threatening and out of control to me about money and maths.

Or worse, to an aspiring “artiste,” such as myself, something constraining and restrictive. I was a far too much of a free spirit to be held in the traces by such trifling things as mathematical logic or the spending restrictions of a budget.

I loathed and disdained such restrictions. I devised pictures in my head of small, weak muscled little men, sitting in dark rooms under a hanging light with arm bands holding up their shirt sleeves and half caps on their head. Wearing thick glasses with gold wire rims.

In my head, they exuded an air of punitiveness and judgment and were decidedly “unfun.” Who would want to consort with such lowly people or follow their dictates? Phooey.

Well, since those days of conjuring visions of money banshees and numbers demons in my head, I have matured. Somewhat.

I get the inherent logic of income and outflow. I understand living within your means and why it has stress and financial management benefits.

But my relationship with money is still conflicted. I was scanted – mostly emotionally – as a young child. When my parents’ marriage imploded, I was only 11 and on the brink of adolescence.

Before the implosion, we enjoyed all the perks of a professional middle class upbringing in our small East Coast Canadian town: swimming and piano and ballet lessons. Summer camp. Pony Club. Birthday parties galore both hosted and attended.

Those pre-teen years and until the age of majority was reached should have been a stage of life when I had a cocoon to develop in. Needs fully taken care of. Some wishes met. A warm and safe bed to sleep in every night.

It didn’t go that way for long after the marriage broke down. Eviscerated by business and financial loss, my father doubled down on his miserliness. He did keep a roof over our heads. We were fed and clothed – if parsimoniously. We had the basics. Just.

And only until I was 16. When I started earning money outside the home, the cocoon imploded. Dad moved to another town and left me in the big city to survive on my temporary salary and whatever survival skills I had and would pick up along the way.

Looking back, that was probably too young to be abandoned by parental supervision. Something I only realized in retrospect.

So my internal relationship with money is a bit out of whack. I have the standards and expectations of someone raised in upper middle class affluence. At the same time, I carry the fear and neurosis of a child who had all of her security – including financial – ripped away. And much too soon.

As another tax deadline rises on the horizon, familiar old neuroses are emerging, too. But I have changed my approach over the years.

In prior years, I would stall and upend the tax preparation process for the absence of a single receipt or maybe two worth only a few dollars. I have learned now that ballparking is a reasonable target.

The tax people don’t care if your calculations are off by a few dollars. They care immensely if you decide to avoid filing taxes at all or grossly misrepresent your finances. I have taken extraordinary care over the years to ensure I do neither. With mixed results.

So after what can only be described in my universe of a flagrant spending spree in recent months to get the home I’ve always dreamed of, I am changing gears. I am preparing a “bud jet.” I am addressing the debt that has accumulated and how to best bring it in check.

My husband is of the view – as am I – that paying interest to credit card companies is akin to throwing money away. We are in synch in that regard. What he has – and has always had – is an easy relationship and confidence about money that I never had.

But I’m learning. After a healthy relationship with oneself, with one’s spouse and family and friends, a healthy relationship with money is an essential part of one’s overall well-being. I have learned that lesson about money.

With maths, I have at least learned to tally numbers pretty accurately in my head. That is progress, too. Maths doesn’t so much terrify me these days as confuse me. But I manage the basics. I could likely conquer it if I were so inclined.

So off I go to reopen the Excel spreadsheet I have been working on. I can’t say I love the budgeting process. But I don’t hate and fear it any more as I once did.

I have finally learned money management is my dominion to control.

Not the other way around.