I began keeping a budget 3 years ago, shortly after I started my career and began living on my own for the first time.

Primarily it was about necessity: I lived with roommates at school but this was something entirely different. My financial life became much more complex. I had utilities and rent, I had to furnish the place, I had the epiphany that everything--from toilet paper to garbage bags--had to be bought. By me.

So I opened Excel. If you're kind you'd call my budget "optimistic." A better word would be "fiction."

I refined it over the next few months, allocating, adjusting, and before long I had something that seemed realistic. I was proud of myself. I felt responsible.

A month later, my savings was a nice, round number: $0.

Only then did I learn that making a budget is easy. I could make 5 of them on a Saturday before the first kickoff. Keeping a budget, THAT was the hard part.

So I opened Excel and turned my budget into a living document. One tab for each month. A section to record each expense, and a report that tracks the spending across categories. Simple and effective for my needs.

It took a couple months for me to discipline myself into writing everything down. Some things I just couldn't stand to see in black & white.

But I made it a habit. Every night I'd return home, open the spreadsheet, and record every dime I'd spent.

My expense:income ratio made it easy to over-spend. I was never at risk of not making rent or my car payment. It was about whether or not I'd have anything left-over for savings at the end of the month. And from this simple act of writing EVERYTHING down came the "consequence" I needed to control my spending.

"Do I really want to go home and write this down" became the first thought going through my head when I was tempted to spend.

I've distilled this experience into 2 suggestions to anybody struggling to keep a budget:

Be Realistic
Take my current budget as outlined in my last post. I could budget $100 for entertainment. I could double my debt-reduction.

But i know myself. I know I'm young and moderately successful for my age and I like to go out and have dinner with my girlfriend. And I know that I could save nothing and pay my debts down in a few months but I like the feeling of cash on hand. By knowing my own spending habits I can constrain them without resenting my budget and feeling joyless.

Write It Down
This was the secret to my budgeting success at a time in my life when most my friends considered a bottle of Grey Goose a Liquid Asset.

This simple act of accounting for my own spending at the end of the day was the missing piece of my puzzle.

I started my career 3 years ago at a small company in my hometown. I was offered $50,000 with cheap health benefits and I jumped at the chance.

Before long I moved into my own apartment, a downtown loft that was expensive for the market but a great place for a young single guy to lure back unsuspecting young, single girls.

Around this time, in a way I still don't understand, I became more financially mature in 2 big ways:

1. I became a "saver" after 5 years as an unrepentant "spender."

2. I learned how to keep a budget.

I'll write more about these later, but I created my first budget then and I've been a budget evangelist (rare at my age) since.

Generally speaking, here's where I'm at right now:

Rent: 1,600
Auto: 480
Groceries: 300
Gasoline: 80
Utilities: 275
Shopping: 200
Entertainment: 300
Miscellaneous: 200
Debt Reduction: 350
Savings: 1050

Rent
I live in a moderately expensive market but I also rent a condo that is too nice and too expensive. There's a long story about this but suffice to say that I don't see myself renewing my lease in October unless I get this reduced. Not out of the question in this RE market.

Savings
Right now this is liquid in a savings account.

I also contribute 4% pretax income to my companies 401k with a 100% match. That puts my total savings (inc. match) at $19,000/yr.

When I relocated in 2008 I burned thru most of the savings I had at that point. It was painful but worthwhile: My income increased from $55k in the midwest to $83k here.

So there you have it.