Millennial Money: If ‘budget’ bums you out, try renaming it

Webster’s New World dictionary defines budget as: “a plan or schedule adjusting expenses during a certain period to the estimated or fixed income for that period.”

If that doesn’t sound fun, I don’t know what does. (I’m kidding. It sounds terrible.)

By definition alone, budgeting sounds like a chore. So it’s no surprise that many people hear the word “budget” and think: Constraints. Restrictions. Hassle. And it’s even less of a surprise, then, that most people simply don’t do it.

Only 33% of American adults follow a budget, according to an October 2017 survey of Americans from NerdWallet . The time and effort involved are often cited as the reasons, but trying and failing is also a barrier. In a separate study from Northwestern Mutual, 79% of respondents said being financially responsible meant not deviating from a budget.