Today’s guest on the Consumerism Commentary Podcast is J.D. Roth, author of Your Money: The Missing Manual and the personal finance blog Get Rich Slowly. A few weeks ago, J.D. gave a presentation at an Oregon public library about building and maintaining a budget that works. He adapted the presentation into an article.
Today, J.D., Bryan J Busch, and Flexo talk about roadblocks in the budgeting process and how to design an effective budget.
Table of contents
– [00:00] Introduction from Bryan J Busch
– [00:33] Interview with J.D. Roth
– [00:53] “Do what works for you,” and try again if it doesn’t work
– [02:13] The Balanced Money Formula
– [03:10] Budgets with too many categories seem oppressive
– [06:39] Only spend what you can carry
– [08:07] Some people literally can’t keep their Needs under 50% of their net income
– [11:33] What turns a Want into a Need?
– [12:43] Paying off debt isn’t a Need or a Want, it counts as Savings
– [13:37] For some, giving to charity is considered a Need
– [15:38] Annual budgets are more accurate
– [18:51] Moving from normal salary to full-time freelancing
– [22:22] J.D.’s new project: AwesomePeople.com
– [26:56] End
We always welcome feedback from listeners. If you have any comments for this episode or for any other, or if you have suggestions for future episodes, please leave us comments here or email us at podcast at this domain name.
Theme music by Mindcube.
Updated July 25, 2011 and originally published May 8, 2011. If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to the RSS feed or receive daily emails. Follow @flexo on Twitter and visit our Facebook page for more updates.
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Luke Landes founded Consumerism Commentary in 2003 and has been building online communities since 1990. Luke, also known as Flexo, has contributed to PC World Magazine, US News, Forbes, and other publications. 
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
bryan/flexo…perhaps i missed it, but are you no longer providing the transcripts of the podcasts? i loved that they were available, as i could read them when i was not able to listen for one reason or another.
Thanks for the Adaptu mention J.D.!
Loved this podcast. I only recently started downloading these to my IPOD. Interesting concept and ideas.
this was a good podcast but flexo i’ve got a question: when talking about needs and wants regarding budgeting how does technology play a role? Is getting the latest kindle, iPhone, iPad more of want or need?
Tech devices are often wants, not needs.