The Verdict: Stick to the budget!!!

So, how many of you have a budget? And by that I don't just mean spending only what you make...I mean a spreadsheet outlining your income versus your debt and how your income is allocated each month, etc.? Well, I do. I'm just that anal.

I NEED to know where my money is going...even if I learn that it's going to too much booze and baby toys. Yes, you heard me. Booze and baby toys. I could NOT live without knowing exactly how our paychecks are being spent. I stopped with the hardcore budgeting toward the end of my pregnancy and I just resumed last month. I went for about 7 months of what I would call "flying by the seat of my pants" with our money and I nearly had a breakdown. And when I recently analyzed where our money was ACTUALLY going as opposed to where it SHOULD be going, that feeling of breakdown resurfaced.

I have read Dave Ramsey's book The Total Money Makeover. It was uber helpful. Seriously. It gave me the rundown of where our money should be going. And then it taught me how to actually make sure it goes there. So awesome. I do understand that by buying the book I did not contribute to where the money should be going and that I did contribute to Dave Ramsey's financial success. But in the long run it helped, so I think it was worth it.

I'm back at hardcore budgeting. I sleep better at night. I don't worry that we won't have enough money if the car breaks. I still get upset when the car breaks because I still don't want to pay for it. But I CAN pay for it. I just don't want to. I am back to paying most of our unallocated money to our debt. We don't have an exorbitant amount of debt, but I just want what little there is to be gone. I can't tell you the last time I paid a minimum payment on anything including our mortgage. I just don't want to owe anyone money.

I was doing some research today to determine if Dave Ramsey's methods were still deemed appropriate or feasible or whatever. You know how things are sometimes determined to be useless a few years down the road, such as the Atkins Diet (just so you know, I am neither in favor of nor opposed to the Atkins Diet. It was just an example I remembered...). I came across this article that was very interesting to me. It was interesting because it did the number crunching for me! That's what I can relate to...cold, hard facts (atleast when it comes to money).

According to the article, all three approaches used are pretty comparable....it seems to be an individual decision on which method to use. I personally like the snowball method. It's the least amount of number crunching and it is almost instantly gratifying. The millionaire method seems easy enough, but that's alot of math to do at first. And the highest interest rate first approach is the common sense approach, but takes the longest to see results. Interesting...

So, here are my questions:

* Do you have debt?
* How do you pay it? Do you only pay minimum payments or do you double up or what?
* Do you stick to a budget every month or fly by the seat of your pants?
* Do you have a fool-proof way of budgeting?

It will be interesting to see responses...