I'm curious to learn more about how all of you think about money, so I thought that I would start running a series of 'Money Polls' on various topics... First up: Budgeting. But before I ask you guys whether or not you make (and stick to!) a budget, I thought I'd say a few words about how we do things. As it turns out, our approach has been more along the lines of what I would call 'reverse-budgeting'...

Instead of mapping our what we're going to spend, we focus on what we're NOT going to spend. That is, we save/invest a predetermined amount (in other words, we pay ourselves first), and then let the chips fall where they may (so to speak). Maybe we'd do incrementally better if we were more compulsive about our budget, but we're already spread pretty thin time-wise (what with the four boys, and all) so this is how we do it. And when you combine our approach with a generally frugal mentality, it seems to work out pretty well.

With that said, let's get to the budgeting poll (<-- click that link to get there)...

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