Oh yes, this is the biggest lie we tell ourselves. I tell myself this lie on a regular basis! Then I sigh, and stop, and think, and you know what? There is ALWAYS something you can cut from your budget. Any person anywhere has about 30% of their budget going to something that can be cut. I don't care how rich or poor you are - there is always room to cut. The tricky part is admitting it!

But how do you find it? The first thing you have to do is take an honest accounting of your expenditures. Don't judge, don't try to change - just spend a month writing down everything that you spend, and what category it belongs to.

This can be a shocking experience. I would venture to say that most people don't REALLY know where every penny goes. We think we do, but if you actually track every cost for a month, I can guarantee you'll be surprised by the results!

Now here is a funny thing. We all find it incredibly easy to tell someone else what they should stop buying. Right? You can just look at one of your friends and name five ways they should stop wasting their money. It's so easy to see these things from the outside.

So here is what you do, once you have finished your Month Of Writing Everything Down: pretend like it's someone else's budget. Pretend as if your best friend has written down all her expenditures, and she wants you to help pick what items she should start cutting back.

I like to go a step farther, and pretend that my life is a struggling business that I have recently been put in charge of. I don't doubt that if you were put in charge of your workplace and told to rein in the budget, you would have some pretty good ideas on how to make changes.

We all indulge in "If I was the boss" fantasies. But when it comes to your finances, you ARE the boss. You are the one in charge of allocating funds and making purchasing decisions. You are also the one responsible for saying "no," and for making sure that the budget stays balanced.

These are tough times, and even if life is good for you right now, it might not be in a few months. If you were laid off today, what would you stop buying, so that you could sock that money away for an unknown period of unemployment?

Would you bring your own French press to work, instead of buying a latte every afternoon? Would you bring your dinner leftovers to eat for lunch, instead of buying lunch every day? Would you drop the $20/month data plan from your cell phone bill? Would you call the cable company and switch from digital to basic cable?

You already know what you can cut from your budget. You just don't want to. And believe me, I've been there! But getting past that layer of denial is the best thing you can do for yourself - and for your bank account!

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