When I sit down to budget, I think “I have never ending needs and wants,” and I feel fear that I won’t have enough money to fulfill my desires, and then I don’t budget. The upside is that I don’t spend, but then I also don’t enjoy having things even though I enjoy having the money. My belief is that if I budget, I have a better plan for my money. But every day, I see things I want to buy that I feel like I don’t have the money for. I’m making more money than ever before, but I can’t shake the scarcity entirely. There’s so many things I want for myself, but I’m terrified that I will spend all of my money. I hate looking at my spending because I feel fear even though I know I will keep making money.

C: Purchased You Need a Budget software and have made three budgets, entered transactions, stop using the system for months at a time
T: I’m afraid to look at my spending
F: Shame
A: Tell myself I need to make a budget to plan for things I want, tell myself there’s not enough money, don’t spend money so I don’t have to keep track and look at a budget, associate budget with a word that makes me feel constricted, tell myself I need a budget since I have more wants than money, don’t enter transactions into budgeting software, don’t make a plan for my money, wait to purchase things I want, don’t purchase them, have small panic attacks when it comes to spending money
R: Have a hard relationship to money

I want to have more ease around budgeting and not have it feel like it’s something that I’m doing from a sense of lack.