“Budgeting is simply telling your future self where today’s nonsense stopped.”
— The Sage
The Sage has always viewed money as a peculiar invention — a system designed to make life easier that somehow manages to make everyone more anxious instead. In his eyes, budgeting isn’t about spreadsheets, apps or cleverly coloured graphs. It’s about drawing a polite line between what you want now and what your future self will have to live with later.
When he speaks of “today’s nonsense,” The Sage isn’t only referring to impulse purchases and unnecessary luxuries — though he certainly means those too. He’s talking about the small moments of weakness, the emotional spending, the comforting little decisions made at the end of a long day when willpower has packed up and gone home. Budgeting, he suggests, is simply deciding where that nonsense ends before it grows legs and starts walking all over tomorrow.
Yet he doesn’t say this with judgement. The Sage understands that nonsense is part of being human. Life without it would be terribly dull. His point is simply that wisdom lies in balance — a little nonsense for today, a little kindness for your future self. Budgeting, then, becomes less about restriction and more about quiet generosity toward the person you’re about to become.
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The Sage Page 