As someone who has spent a huge amount of brain cells mulling over money, a well-known pillar of financial wellness is that you need to budget. Here’s the thing: while budgeting is touted by many in the personal finance blogs as mission critical to getting your finances straight, they don’t always work. Not for long, anyway. For every budget I’ve tried — the 50/30/20 budget, zero-sum budget, spreadsheet, and envelope system — I would start out great. I would meticulously track every purchase and expense, allocate my income into neat categories, and congratulate myself for creating such a neat, beautifully put-together budget. It felt like magic, at least at first. Fast forward to a few months’ time, and I would have let my budget fall by the wayside. Why’s that? The reasons may stem from a number of reasons: feeling boxed-in from having too specific spending categories, lapsing into...