Good cash flow management is arguably THE NUMBER ONE indicator of financial success.
The ability to consistently save for your goals is far more important than having a big income, investment strategy, or lots of tax deductions.
This is true because saving: 1) grows your wealth; 2) reduces the amount of wealth you need because your living expenses are less.
Traditional budgeting focuses primarily on your expenses and looks like the picture above.
I agree that it's a very healthy financial habit to regularly review where your money is going and I'm not here to discourage it. But the problem with traditional budgeting is that you could successfully stay within the budget month over month, but still have no idea if you're on track to retire!
Wouldn't it be worth figuring out how to maximize your life experience at every stage?
Warren Buffet summarizes my suggested tactic of budgeting well, "do not save what is left after spending; instead spend what is left after saving."
The key is to figure out how much you need to save!
I'm not suggesting that I have the golden ticket to budgeting, but I am suggesting that you should at least attempt to identify what success looks like before implementing any financial strategy. And budgeting is no different.
Check out this video for an explanation of how to roughly identify how much you need to save and what's left over to spend!