I've recently made an enormous change in how I construct my budgets.

I, like most people who actually make budgets, tend to make very detailed budgets. I like to break my spending plan down three ways from Sunday...and well beyond the point of reason. There are be categories for snacks, and restaurants, and coffee, and fast food, and groceries - and each would be planned out in meticulous detail.

I have to say, too: it looked wonderful at the beginning of every month. The problem was that it ultimately sucked and didn't work for what a budget should: guiding me to control my spending.

The thing was that I wound up doing a lot of bargaining with myself; I would promise myself I would spend a little less on shopping to make up for blowing the fast food budget to have one more delicious burger.

Then at the end of the month I would go buy something to fill up the shopping budget, and then give myself a pat on the back and say "good job, self! You only went over on one budget category! You're a veritable financial wizard!"

It was terrible, and it didn't do crap for my financial situation. It might have even been counter-productive.

Now I'm budgeting for the things that absolutely must be paid every month: things like utilities, my car payment, my cell phone, credit card payments, things that I must pay on time every month.

Everything else just gets to run wild and free now, in the "Everything Else" category. Shopping, food, snacks, coffee, all that goes in one big lump.

It works great, too. Mint shows me a bar that represents where I am, and then puts a line on it to show where I should be. If the bar passes the line I know it's time to cool it; best of all there's no way I can bargain with myself about it.

If I blow the one budget category there's no way to tell myself it's justified.