3 ms·

> Budget culture is the damaging set of beliefs around money that — like so-called diet culture does for food and bodies — rewards restriction and deprivation,

> Budget culture is the damaging set of beliefs around money that — like so-called diet culture does for food and bodies — rewards restriction and deprivation, and promotes an unhealthy and fantastical ideal of financial success. This is a great article. None of the effective roads to financial success involve budgeting as a core competencey. Is it a good skill to not needlessly waste money on things that don't provide you value? Sure. But the reality is that accruing a large net worth (let's say 1M+) is not something you do by budgeting.

mantas 4y ago
> But the reality is that accruing a large net worth (let's say 1M+) is not something you do by budgeting. Budgeting won't take you to 1M, but not budgeting can prevent you from getting there.
- spicyusername 4y ago
  For sure. Budgeting will help keep you from falling into destitution, but it does little to help you climb away from it.
- Brendinooo 4y ago
  Yeah, a budget was pretty much the main driver of my wife and I getting rid of student loan and credit card debt. My net worth isn’t 1MM, but I’m not sure it’d be anywhere close to what it is now without budgeting.
Dig1t 4y ago
I have to say I disagree, I think almost all roads to real wealth HAVE to involve budgeting. A budget is just a plan for how you’re going to spend your money. Companies make them, the richest people in the world employee people to make them for them. If you don’t have a plan for your money BEFORE you receive it, your reptile brain and limbic system will make some silly choices when you actually have the money in hand. A good example is Michael Jordan. There’s a famous story about when he first got rich he very quickly spent all his millions on very expensive cars. He went basically from super rich to very poor in the span of a few transactions because he didn’t have a plan for his money. (Also he didn’t understand how taxes worked at the time, and he’s obviously since become super wealthy again). But this kind of thing happens all the time on a smaller scale and all this budgeting culture stuff teaches is that you should be smart and have a plan for your money, with a set of small, medium, and long term goals.
- BeetleB 4y ago
  > I think almost all roads to real wealth HAVE to involve budgeting. You should listen to the podcast "How I Built This". I used to think going years without being profitable was in the domain of modern tech startups, and what I learned is the model of "Just beg and borrow money for over a decade without turning a profit in the hope that it will pay off" has always been a fairly common model, even 40 years ago and for small non-tech businesses. On the other extreme, almost no extremely successful businesses got there by bootstrapping. Atlassian is one of the few that come to mind. It's insane, and is likely to fail, but those businesses would not have succeeded by sticking to a budget. Obviously, not advice I'd give to any individual.
readthenotes1 4y ago
It is not something you do by budgeting alone, but it is certainly something you do by spending less than you earn. Like dieting, if you consume more than you produce, you are going to be in trouble. The article is a great salve for people who don't want to stop the ice cream...

mantas 4y ago

> But the reality is that accruing a large net worth (let's say 1M+) is not something you do by budgeting. Budgeting won't take you to 1M, but not budgeting can prevent you from getting there.

spicyusername 4y ago
For sure. Budgeting will help keep you from falling into destitution, but it does little to help you climb away from it.
Brendinooo 4y ago
Yeah, a budget was pretty much the main driver of my wife and I getting rid of student loan and credit card debt. My net worth isn’t 1MM, but I’m not sure it’d be anywhere close to what it is now without budgeting.

Dig1t 4y ago

I have to say I disagree, I think almost all roads to real wealth HAVE to involve budgeting. A budget is just a plan for how you’re going to spend your money. Companies make them, the richest people in the world employee people to make them for them. If you don’t have a plan for your money BEFORE you receive it, your reptile brain and limbic system will make some silly choices when you actually have the money in hand. A good example is Michael Jordan. There’s a famous story about when he first got rich he very quickly spent all his millions on very expensive cars. He went basically from super rich to very poor in the span of a few transactions because he didn’t have a plan for his money. (Also he didn’t understand how taxes worked at the time, and he’s obviously since become super wealthy again). But this kind of thing happens all the time on a smaller scale and all this budgeting culture stuff teaches is that you should be smart and have a plan for your money, with a set of small, medium, and long term goals.

BeetleB 4y ago
> I think almost all roads to real wealth HAVE to involve budgeting. You should listen to the podcast "How I Built This". I used to think going years without being profitable was in the domain of modern tech startups, and what I learned is the model of "Just beg and borrow money for over a decade without turning a profit in the hope that it will pay off" has always been a fairly common model, even 40 years ago and for small non-tech businesses. On the other extreme, almost no extremely successful businesses got there by bootstrapping. Atlassian is one of the few that come to mind. It's insane, and is likely to fail, but those businesses would not have succeeded by sticking to a budget. Obviously, not advice I'd give to any individual.

readthenotes1 4y ago

It is not something you do by budgeting alone, but it is certainly something you do by spending less than you earn. Like dieting, if you consume more than you produce, you are going to be in trouble. The article is a great salve for people who don't want to stop the ice cream...