I think budgeting is entirely stupid.

No, honey, without a detailed budget where I both track and plan for future expenses, I really would not remember that two weeks ago, my son spent $143 on a new battery for our second car or that my college age daughter decided that she really did need that additional engineering textbook after her 529 transfer was complete. I would not have any way of accounting for the $478 plane ticket and $1100 hotel reservation my spouse bought on behalf of his employer to visit a client next week (it will be reimbursed in mid-March, but in the mean time I will need to cover it). I would not remember that we went out to eat last Friday and spent $44.63 at Torchy's. I would not have set aside $2800 to pay our property taxes due in a couple of weeks nor would I be in a position to pay our accountant for her services in preparing our returns. I would not have planned for estimated taxes from taking a distribution late last year nor would I be ready to pay the 60k mile maintenance bill for our primary vehicle. And for damn sure, without a budget optimized to our family's needs, I wouldn't be managing to put away 42% of our annual household income into some sort of savings/investment vehicle. I'm all for embracing a simple life, but, dude, you have got to stop being such a condescending jerk because despite what you may believe, you don't have it all figured out.

/r/personalfinance Thread Parent