Budgets and Math and Numbers...OH MY!

So...budgets are The. Worst. I remember my dad telling me that I needed to "stick to a budget" when I opened my first checking and savings account. I remember thinking "But this 'money' is just numbers! Those can be flubbed, right!?" They couldn't. I bounced my first check when I was about 17 years old and wrote a check for gas. I was like "Well, I didn't write down every cent I've spent this month, but I'm SURE there's enough in the good ol' budget."

There wasn't.

I didn't understand that money is a very real thing. Once it's spent, it's gone. It doesn't just magically reappear because you add wrong or forget about that pair of jeans you just HAD to have. Money is so RUDE.

When I wanted more than 250 minutes a month on my very first cell phone, despite having zero other friends with cell phones, my parents were all "Hey, if you want more, you gotta buy them." Um...extra minutes back then were EXPENSIVE. I was bouncing my next check to AT&T before the first month was done. I learned the value of a dollar. And that dollar didn't get me that many minutes, back then.

I discussed a wedding budget with my parents tonight. It SUCKED. All of a sudden, I had to attach a monetary value to certain things that I had previously been like "There is no dollar amount that can be placed on confetti guns." Because there is a monetary value for EVERYTHING. And it's HARD to figure it all out. And I am NOT GOOD at math.

Who knew that there was so much math involved in planning a wedding? Okay, fine...clearly, EVERYONE knew that except me.

I had a nervous breakdown tonight after the discussion with my parents. There was math and Excel equations and brain bleeds...it was rough. I was having flashbacks to the time when I accidentally enrolled in Logic and Reasoning in college because I was promised there were no numbers involved. Turns out, there were no numbers because they were instead represented by SYMBOLS. I had to know numbers well enough to TRANSLATE them into other things and I still can't believe I (barely) passed that class. Thank God for grading on a curve...

But, thanks to Geo and my parents, I eventually calmed down. Also, I'm more than a little concerned that once the math and calculators and percentages and figures were out of my immediate sight, I decided to completely disregard them again to relax again. I guess it's a vicious cycle.

Oh well, I guess will go ahead and agree with Geo that "It will all work out," which is something I almost never believe will happen, at least not without careful and constant meddling. He's just way better at math than I am.