Making your first budget feels like a punishment. A few months in, it often starts to feel like freedom.

A budget looks like a rule and behaves like information. What it actually does is end the low grade worry that runs underneath everything when you do not know where you stand: you stop guessing, you stop flinching at the balance, and you find out some things you felt guilty about are affordable. The restriction is the first fortnight. The relief is everything after it.

Spend one month just recording, with no targets at all. Every pound out, into one note or one app. At the end you will have an honest picture, and a budget built from that is far easier to keep than one built from a guess.