Just don’t confuse budgeting with forecasting—one is a real-life plan, the other is a series of guesses built on what-ifs and maybes. Forecasting has you “budgeting” money you don’t have and pretending you know exactly what your expenses will be three months from now. You know it probably won’t work out that way, and you don’t feel much better after you’ve run the imaginary numbers. Budgeting has you prioritizing the money you have—and leaves you feeling confident because you know it’s one hundred percent based in reality.
