Budgeting Poll Results

Written by Nickel - 2 Comments

Well, the first Money Poll was a great success with 187 responses as of this writing. Thanks to all who participated. The question of the week was “Do you make/follow a budget?” As I stated in the original poll post, we tend to pay ourselves first and then let the chips fall where they may. So how does everyone else do it?

Here are the results:

44% — I tend to save/invest first, and then let the chips fall where they may
26% — Yep, I know where every cent is going before I even earn it
17% — I rough things out in my head, and then do my best to follow it (sort of)
6% — Budget? What’s a budget?
5% — Well… I make a budget, but I rarely stick to it
2% — Other (see the comments section)

I have to admit that I was a bit surprised that we’re amongst the majority… Given the audience, I thought that there might be more hardcore budgeters out there. Anything jump out at you from these data? If so, please leave a comment. Oh, and I’m going to leave the poll open, so feel free to drop by and leave a response if you haven’t had a chance to do so yet.

Be sure to check back next week for the next poll in the series. And if you have any ideas as to poll questions that you’d like to see, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Published on February 24th, 2006 - 2 Comments
Filed under: Polls
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About the author: Nickel is the founder and editor-in-chief of this site. He's a thirty-something family man who has been writing about personal finance since 2005, and guess what? He's on Twitter!

Comments (scroll down to add your own):

If you pay yourself first, you can be just as frugal without a rigid budget as with one. Indeed, in my case I’m _more_ able to save by discarding the notion of a fixed budget, because my method makes an unanticipated expense more likely to be paid for by cutting back some other expense than by dipping into savings.
Comment by Matt — Feb 25th 2006 @ 5:00 am