For the past 8 years, I’ve taken immense pride in my weekly “appointments” with my Excel workbook. Ever the budgeting nerd, I’ve spent countless hours crunching numbers, creating graphs and pie charts, and running various macros and formulas.

I’ve created hundreds of tabs, run countless what-if scenarios, and have tracked everything from my debt totals and retirement account balances to my net worth and mortgage payoff efforts.

My prize for all of that hard work?

A pretty well-balanced budget that has allowed me to pay off my credit card debt in less than a year, understand my spending habits, and manage my money as a freelancer. More than a means to track what’s coming in and going out, my budget has been a rock-solid tool that had aided my quest for financial freedom.

A Budget Turning Point

Yesterday, I told my beloved budget to shove it.

That’s right, the very budget that I’ve spent the past 8+ years perfecting has officially been thrown out the window. And for good reason…

As I was working through the various numbers and tallying my various expenditures, I realized that I’m not using my budget as I once did. Whereas before I was constantly aware of each line item’s specifics, I now find myself using a more generalized approach to budgeting and meeting my financial goals.

I no longer find myself in the depths of the dark side of budgeting, but I’m also not completely abandoning all of the things I’ve learned as I’ve cleaned up my financial life over the years. As I once did before, I’ve decided that a break from budgeting is in the cards and this time, it’s permanent.

The Birth of a Spending Plan

Before anyone thinks I’ve flown the coop and will soon be drowning in debt after I fritter away the $100K profit I made from selling my condo, there is a personal finance-friendly alternative in the works.

From now on, the worksheets I produce in my Excel books will be geared more towards creating a fluid, sustainable spending plan for each month. After all, my fixed expenses such as rent, car insurance, and utilities don’t change from month to month (we’re on a fixed payment plan for our heating bills and the electric fluctuates only a few dollars at most). My retirement and long-term savings contributions are auto-debited each month so those don’t change either.

The only piece of the puzzle that’s left after all of this is my discretionary spending. At this point in my life, these are the only line items that change from month to month which is why utilizing a spending plan makes much more sense than balancing a budget does.

Make a Spending Plan Work for You

A spending plan isn’t simply a fancier way to refer to your budget. It’s the idea that if you concentrate your efforts on managing your discretionary spending well, you can fit a lot more into your monthly spending without going overboard.

When used correctly, a spending plan helps you make good decisions about where your money is going so that you’re able to more freely purchase the things, vacations, and experiences you covet most. It’s an ever-changing entity that affords you the freedom of choice in any given month.

A World of Possibilities

If you’re interested in creating your own spending plan, it’s quite simple: Focus your attention on what you’re spending as well as what you’re saving. Obviously these totals should never be in excess of what you earn, but if you’re focused less on balancing line items and more on creatively managing your spending, you’ll find that a world of possibilities opens up.

With a spending plan, it’s far easier to readjust one category to account for a greater amount being spent in a different area. It’s also easier to see where you need to cut back on frivolous purchases and how you can fit in other things you’d rather have more. You can literally plan as you go instead of feeling locked into a budget that was created weeks or months prior.

In essence, it’s a win-win in terms of getting a handle on your money and making it work better for you. In my book, this is always a winning equation for how to manage your money well.

Would you tell your budget to shove it?