In the comments section of last week’s Business post, I heard this question a couple of times over: how does one learn how to budget? So, my lovely readers, I’ve returned with a few thoughts on the subject, and the promise of more details on the horizon.

Why the #@&$ do I need a budget?

Let’s be honest: budgeting doesn’t sound like a very sexy undertaking. Why even bother?

It boils down to this: most of us don’t have a lot of money to throw around. (See: Great Recession. Employment insecurity. Depressed salaries. Exorbitant student loan balances. Widening wealth gap. Sound familiar?) What we do have, then, we need to spend intentionally, in order to maximize our financial security and our enjoyment of life.

Like it or not, budgeting is the practice of intentional spending. Handling your money with intention helps you emphasize things that are important to you, cast aside the things that aren’t, and help you stay afloat next time you’re faced with a financial tsunami.

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On the way back from work tonight, my usual route met me with its usual, miserable traffic jam. But this time, the cause was different. Instead of the normal volume-related pileup, tonight’s roads were clogged because someone had abandoned his car in the middle of Route 7. I reached, then passed the darkened vehicle eventually, but glancing at it sideways, I didn’t feel one twinge of annoyance. Honestly, I couldn’t really blame the guy.

Because I know what it’s like to feel like cutting and running, too. I’m confined all day by claustrophobia-inducing cubicle walls, y’all. There’s that aforementioned and predictably atrocious commute, plus a no-longer-homey apartment (it hasn’t been the same since my neighbor’s bedbugs invaded my own four walls. Yeah, let’s not talk about that). I have big plans in the works, of course, ones that (fingers crossed) will change all of the above. And I promise you’ll hear about them when the time is right. But until the day my lease is up, I’ve resolved to find inspiration in the parts of my life I still control.

Recently, I’ve found hope in the posts of two new-to-me blogs. At Makeunder My Life, Jess Constable has written about creating a home in the way that Michelangelo created his statue of David. (“It is easy,” he apparently said of sculpting a masterpiece from a boulder. “You just chip away the stone that doesn’t look like David.”) Instead of finding peace in consumption, Jess talks about finding it through “exfoliating” unnecessary possessions, making her home’s trash-to-treasure ratio more favorable by subtracting, not adding. John and Sherry Petersik, over at the very fun home blog Young House Love (represent, Virginia!), seem to share a similar philosophy. It’s encapsulated in this post on living happily with less. And from their (very smart) posts on frugality, I’ve been inspired to start using and enjoying the things I already have—everything from pantry items to that long-ignored Netflix subscription.

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As March turns to April, almost everything gets better. The air temperature is more predictable, the days are longer and sunnier, and D.C.’s cherry blossoms signal new beginnings. There’s cause for organized celebration, too: Passover and Easter are on the horizon! Back at school, this was the time when Georgetown’s front lawn filled up with picnic blankets, lounging students, and frisbee players. In those carefree days, April meant pure, unadulterated happiness.

In the real world, I suppose, it also signifies that your tax return is coming due. I’m a first-time filer, which means I finally make enough money (yay!) for the IRS to want to keep tabs on me (eek). This made for a Sunday filled with just a little more tooth-grinding than I generally enjoy. (If the title of this post doesn’t ring a bell, check out this Beatles classic for some mood music.) TurboTax soothed my obsessive fretting, though, and I realized I’d be getting a payday I hadn’t accounted for. Totally worth a few lost hours of creativity!

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