When it’s summer hot chocolate may not sound like a treat, but it’s still great with this story.

A few years ago I was talking to a co-worker, Sally*, about budgeting and investing. She wanted to invest but felt like her spending was a little out of control; her husband felt like it was a lot out of control. So we talked about budgeting. She laughed at me because I sang the praises of budgeting, but I really do like the control budgeting gives me and how it helps me make a conscious decision about where my money goes.

Sally and I discussed a budget, how she and her husband could set one up, and how they could have money allocated for certain things. The beauty of allocating money is that she and her husband would be on the same page and there should be no problems as long as they both stayed within the constraints they had agreed.

The next week, Sally came up to me and said, “You’re right about the budget. My husband bugs me about spending money on things like hot chocolate at Barnes and Noble, because it’s so expensive. But I really like getting a hot chocolate there. So we made Sally’s Hot Chocolate Fund a budget category. We were at Barnes and Noble last night. I was going to ask him if I could get a hot chocolate. But then I remembered: I don’t need to ask him; we have money budgeted for this. It was so great! I didn’t have to ask, and he didn’t bug me because we both knew there was money budgeted for it.”

I’m glad Sally shared her two bits with me. She had caught the vision of the power of a budget and was excited about it. Something as simple as hot chocolate showed her how liberating a budget can be.

*Name has been changed to protect the recovering non-budgeter.

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