192 | The Spending Tracking Spectrum: Level 5

We'll call this the "Buffet Level" because you can get whatever you want and your plate can be unique to you.

Within the categories of Level 4, you can make all the subcategories your heart (or stomach!) desires.

But we have to be careful - most "budgeting" efforts come to die at Level 5 because we treat it like Level 1.

“We need to budget better.”

“If we just had a budget, then I’d know what I could spend, and I’d do it.”

“How does our spending compare to other people?”

So we find ourselves diving in at Level 5 before we've perfected the other four.

And then we get discouraged because we "fail" or we accumulate a ton of data that never turns into wisdom.

Which leads to hopelessness and finger-pointing and a host of other things.

Which leaves us with a trunk full of emotionally-charged spending baggage...forever.

But if we proceed with care, after perfecting the other four levels, then the freedom of Level 5 can be real.

A freedom that makes it easy to pivot because you're grounded in reality.

A sneakier freedom from choosing to spend less in one area, so you don't have to spend less in every area.

And sometimes even a freedom that comes from seeing that you're spending as well as you can in a particular season.

Of course, Level 5 is not the holy grail of tracking spending, but only one point on a spectrum of spending well.