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Recently in the Millionaire Money Mentors forums, there was a discussion on how people control their spending.

One concept was mentioned over and over: Budgeting.

Sweeping semantics like “budget” vs. “spending plan” vs. “spending goal” and so forth, most of the participants saw the value of being aware of planning at some level for spending.

For now, we're better with budgeting than without

My finances were pretty simple prior to getting married (early aughts). It was just myself and a nice income. (Any income from a “real” job is nice income following being a grad student!)

As such, I didn't really have to budget much at all.

Regain control of your financial transactions! Export all of them to a common spreadsheet with Tiller …

Some of the biggest financial software companies do whatever they can to lock you in to using their products.

I tried for a long time to get used to Quicken.

I started and restarted several times at the beginning of calendar years to use Quicken to track all of our finances, categorize them, budget, etc.

As is often said: “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

I can't really blame Quicken for my failure to follow through with using their software.

After Intuit sold the software (and perhaps even a bit before) there were holes in the functionality for me — particularly the ability to pull in my TSP balance.

Car loans are something that I hope never cross our household again.

We had one briefly a few years ago at a teaser rate and paid it off fast. It was a sad day for our credit union when we paid it off, but a very happy day for us. It was $200 per paycheck that we could allocate to other things.

Our two vehicles have been hanging on really well: my 2004 Corolla and my wife's 2005 Sienna. They're a bit rough around the edges now, but otherwise quite reliable, with nearly 300,000 miles between them.

Three cars may be in our future for a bit

We had three vehicles at one point between my wife and I. (It wasn't worth it.)

With the COVID-19 pandemic on everyone's minds, we give our mortality a bit more thought than usual.

I already know someone who knows someone who died after falling victim to COVID-19. It's likely that I'll eventually know someone personally who's died from it.

When death looms, it works on its own timeline. Sometimes there's time to tie things up, to get your affairs in order. Sometimes there's barely enough time to get the big rocks in place.

Other times, there no time at all. You have done what you have done.

Why a will is important

A will gives your surviving loved ones instructions as to what happens to your stuff, and who you entrust with particular roles. Some of the biggies: