17 Advantages And Disadvantages Of Budgeting-2023 Update!

Are you struggling financially? The budgeting might be a good tool for you!

Budgeting is something you’re either on board with or dreading. We’ve been told that tightening the purse strings from time to time can be good, but what about the flipside? 

Have you ever thought of the advantages and disadvantages of budgeting? 

Are there actually disadvantages to budgeting? 

That’s what we’re going to discuss in today’s post. We’ll look at both the advantages and disadvantages of budgeting.

You will also know why budgeting is important for business, and which are the best budgeting planners and tools to keep track of your expenses and saving goals!

Whether you are a business or not, budgeting does not have to be overwhelming if you have the right tools!

BONUS: Looking to remember the main advantages and disadvantages of budgeting?

Here is a FREE Advantages And Disadvantages Of Budgeting PDF just for you, it is a brief summary! You can always come back to this article for more information!

Here’s A Little Summary:

Advantages Of Budgeting :

1. Gets Your Expenses Under Control
2. Helps You Identify Wasteful Expenditures
3. Increases Your Savings
4. Better Resource Allocation
5. Gets Money Under Control
6. Helps You Understand Your Spending Habits
7. Reduces Financial Stress
8. Helps You Get Yourself Out Of Debt (Faster)
9. Prepares You For Emergencies
10. Shifts Your Mindset 
11. Helps You Achieve Your Goals

Disadvantages Of Budgeting:

1. Trouble Finding The Right Budgeting Method
2. Stress When Your Budget Gets Tight
3. Time-consuming
4. Results Are Not Instant
5. Rigidity
6. A Guessing Game

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Advantages Of A Budget

Like anything else, there are merits and demerits of budgetary control. 

Let’s kick off this post on a positive note and take a look at all of the advantages of a budget.

1.Gets Your Expenses Under Control

Have you ever opened your bank account and looked at your bank balance incredulously, wondering where all your money went? 

Wonder no more with a budget because one advantage of budgeting is getting your expenses under control. 

If you’re someone with a spending problem, creating a budget can do a few things for you. It can:

• Help you figure out how much you’re spending
• What you’re spending your money on

2.Helps You Identify Wasteful Expenditures

A budget demands that you go through your finances with a fine-tooth comb. 

By doing so, you’re about to identify money wasted. 

Being aware of what your frivolous expenditures are can help you save a ton of money and help you plug any financial leaks. 

Maybe you never noticed a monthly subscription being deducted or you never realized how much you’re actually spending on your take-out.

An advantage to budgeting is that you’re made aware of your spending habits and therefore can identify and plug any financial leaks. 

3.Increases Your Savings

You know that feeling you get when you dig through the pocket of an old pair of pants and you find a $20 bill? 

That’s a good feeling!  

When you create and stick to a budget, you’ll be surprised how much money you find within your means and what you can save. 

As you decrease your expenses, you should end up with more money at the end of the money. 

And what should you do with that leftover money? Stash that cash and put it towards your savings.  

By doing this consistently, you can watch your savings grow.

True story? A woman managed to save $24,000 a year by sticking to her budget!

She didn’t spend a cent more than she budgeted for, and managed to save this month without any increments in her income.

4. Better Resource Allocation

Been spending too much dining out that it’s affecting your credit card payment plan?

With a budget in place, it will help you to reflect and allocate your money to each category effectively.

This will help you maximize your resources and reduce waste.

5. Gets Money Under Control

The right way is to spend less than you earn. Without budgeting, it is easy to slip up and either spend everything you earn, or worse — more than you have!

Planning will help you control your daily, weekly and monthly expenses and most importantly – AVOID DEBT!

6.Helps You Understand Your Spending Habits

When you really look at your expenses, more often than not, you’ll see a pattern. You can use this pattern to help you understand your spending habits.

If you don’t know where your money is going (surely it isn’t disappearing into some abyss somewhere) setting up a budget can be a real eye-opener. 

A cup of coffee each month may not add up to a lot but a cup of coffee every day for a month? That costs a heck of a lot more than you’d think. 

It may not sound like a big advantage, but having that sense of awareness and understanding to your spending habits is incredibly beneficial to improving your financial health. 

After all, you can’t fix a problem you don’t see. 

7.Reduces Financial Stress

When we look at the advantages and limitations of budgetary control, I think it’s important to consider how a budget can take away a significant amount of pressure and stress.  

Yes it may take awhile to get the knack out of budgeting and planning out your expenses, but while doing it, you will figure out your priority and how your funds will take care of them.

Keep on with the consistency and stick to the plan no matter how painful it may be in the beginning.

Knowing in the back of your mind that you are taking care of your financial health will relieve that heavy burden on your shoulders.

8.Helps You Get Yourself Out Of Debt (Faster)

Another advantage to budgeting is that it can help you reach your financial goals.

Whether this means building a pension fund, savings account, or tackling debt, budgeting can help you get there. 

If you’re swimming in debt and you’re not entirely sure how to get out of it, budgeting is the way to go. 

When you’re aware of your expenses, you can prioritize where your money goes and crawl out of that pit and be debt-free.

9.Prepares You For Emergencies

A huge amount of consideration should go to planning ahead for unexpected expenses when they happen.

A sudden burst in the car tires, a reckless parking ticket, or a plumbing leak aren’t things you can foresee and very unpleasant when it happens.

But they do happen, so budgeting in advance and setting aside a fund for it will help you cover for the expenses if it arises.

Set aside a budget for saving for emergencies, and you will be grateful one day.

10.Shifts Your Mindset 

Setting up a budget and sticking to it can be difficult but when has anything worthwhile come easy, right?

Maybe it isn’t considered an advantage but more of a side effect of budgeting. 

When you stick to a budget, you’re improving your self-discipline. Especially if you’re someone that doesn’t have frugal habits, a budget can help you shift your mindset.

Before you spend money on something, you’ll think twice about it. Your choices and decisions become more deliberate and less impulsive. 

11.Helps You Achieve Your Goals

When you are preparing your budget and financial plan, you will first need to determine your goals (savings goals, or maybe buying a new house).

Instead of waiting for it to happen one day, you will now be actively planning for it, and tracking your progress towards your goals.

Small incremental achievements in seeing how your fund is growing keeps you motivated and that extra push to achieve it.

Hey you might just buy that house faster than you thought!

Disadvantages Of A Budget 

Alright! We have reached the second half of the discussion on the advantages and budgeting disadvantages of budgetary control. 

Let’s see what the downsides are of budgeting:

1.Finding The Right Budgeting Method

“Wait, what do you mean there’s more than one method of budgeting?”

Surprise!

 If you didn’t know this, it’s completely a-okay because we’ll cover a few types of budgets a little later on in this post. 

Finding the right budgeting method gets you a step closer to your goal but that’s not all it takes. 

The right type of budgeting plan for you can be determined by various factors:

• income, 
• expenses, and 
• spending habits. 

There are actually few types of budgets, so it might take some time and a bit of trial and error here and there before you find one that works for you.

2.Stress When Your Budget Gets Tight

When you make lifestyle changes, there will be bumps in the road and a lot of adjusting. 

Adapting to a budget can mean a change in lifestyle and sometimes that’s difficult to stick to. 

Living life guided by a budget means adhering to guidelines and knowing that every cent has its place. 

Sometimes, things don’t go as planned and you’ll find that you need to fork out money on an expenditure you weren’t expecting. 

If you run out of allocated money in any category, it can be very stressful because you are so aware of your progress and how much it can impact your financial health.

It’s a bit of a catch 22

Having awareness can bring great ease but it can also cause stress if you feel like you’re not on track.

3.Time-consuming

When starting something new, it will take a bit of time and effort at least initially.

There’s a early month planning, updating every time you spend and then balancing at every month end.

Also building a habit takes 90 days, so the effort to keep it up can consume some time.

However it will be rewarding and worth the investment once you start seeing the benefits of budgeting.

4.Results Are Not Instant

Budgeting does take time and effort like pointed out above, and therefore to expect overnight success is going to disappoint.

Building the consistency takes time and with the consistency then only the results will come.

You may see small incremental savings in the beginning but that just means you are progressing and every cent counts!

Do keep at it, even if you face setbacks sometimes.

Keep your goals in mind and you will achieve it.

5.Rigidity

Let’s talk about the elephant in the room when it comes to budgetary control advantages and disadvantages. 

The rigidity of a budget can be a double edged sword. 

Short-term? It gets the job done. 

Long-term? It can actually have a less desired effect, which is why it’s listed as a disadvantage.

Budgets when adhered to can achieve great things but they aren’t very flexible. 

The rigidity of living life guided by a budget can mean cutting expenses and working within financial constraints.

This means little to zero wiggle room and can often leave some feeling lackluster or frustrated.

6.A Guessing Game

Planning, budgeting, or forecasting is not an exact science. 

Maybe you’re a freelancer and your income fluctuates depending on the month and the number of projects you have. 

Or let’s say your income is stable but your expenses vary from month to month.

Whichever way you look at it, budgeting uses approximations and judgment which won’t be accurate to the very cent. 

So it may take out some of the guesswork but you’re still playing a guessing game when it comes to budgeting, especially when you can’t foresee some future financial costs.

So, if you look at it holistically, the benefits do outshine the drawbacks of budgeting.

Types Of Budgets

Did you know that there was more than one type of budgeting style? 

There are actually a lot more than you can imagine but for the purpose of today’s post, “advantages and disadvantages of budgeting,” I’ll only get into a few of the more common ones:

1. Zero Based Budgeting
2. Rolling Budget
3. Activity-based Budgeting

1. Zero Based Budgeting

Zero based budgeting is a type of budgeting method that requires all expenses to be justified and approved for each new time-frame or period. 

This is a great budgeting style if you’re someone that spends on a whim. 

Taking up zero based budgeting will only reinforce an advantage we listed: a shift in mindset and being more deliberate.

This post is about the advantages and disadvantages of budgeting, so it would be remiss of me not to mention zero based budgeting advantages and disadvantages:

Advantages:

• It reduces redundant activities and spending
• It’s efficient and accurate: you have to justify actual costs and not numerical guesses

Disadvantages:

• Zero based budgeting is a time-consuming method
• If you really want something, you can find a way to justify the cost which defeats the purpose of this budgeting style

2. A Rolling Budget

What exactly is a rolling budget and what are rolling budget advantages and disadvantages? 

A rolling budget, continuous budget, or rolling forecast is a budget that changes throughout the year. 

A rolling budget means when one month ends, you add another month at the end of the budget.

 It keeps the figurative financial ball rolling and you’re essentially on a continuous budget. What could be so bad about that? 

Well, let’s have a look at the advantages and disadvantages of a rolling budget:

Advantages:

• You’re always up to date with your budget
• A rolling budget will keep reflecting on new changes to the budget

Disadvantages:

• It’s a time-intensive exercise that requires constant revision
• It can be repetitive and mundane looking through your budget and factoring in changes

3. An Activity-Based Budgeting

What about activity-based budgeting? Are there flexible budget advantages and disadvantages? 

Activity-based budgeting is focused on results. 

Let’s say you’re aiming to save $10,000 in one year, you would work backwards to figure out what activities will generate this desired effect and then act on them.

Advantages:

• All tasks revolve around achieving a goal
• Irrelevant costs are removed (leaving you with only the necessities)

Disadvantages:

• It can be complex
• Planning can take time and research
• It focuses on short-term goals 

What Are The Advantages Of Budgeting For Business?

Now, what if you own a business? Does budgeting bring any benefits?

Let’s take a look.

Here are the top 3 reasons for budgeting for business:

1. Strategically Allocate Resources

Ok, let’s imagine for a second you don’t have a budget for your online business, an Etsy store.

You decide to spend $500 on an amazing tool that will help you increase Etsy sales, then $500 more on another tool to create a better Etsy product…and then $500 more on some technical issues.

But, then you realize, you have overspent and can’t pay the next month’s billing period for the most crucial tools for your biz!

Sounds familiar? I hope not. 

But if it does, this kind of problem can be resolved by planning a business budget.

With a budget you:

• Don’t spend money on things that are not a priority
•  Make sure to have enough money saved to invest in the tools, services, or products that are essential to growing your biz.

Tip: Don’t know how to reinvest your money in your business? Here are some ideas:

1. Invest in yourself, buy some courses or workshops to increase your knowledge, and implement the tactics you learn in your business!

2. Outsource, give the tasks you don’t want to do ( or are not qualified to do) to someone who is capable of doing them, this will save you time to focus on important tasks that only you can solve. 

3. Don’t diversify too early, focus first on one business strategy and implement it, this way you’ll know what you should invest in first, as you already have a roadmap to follow. 

This leads us to our next budgeting for business benefit… 

2. Improve Your Decision-Making Process

This is one of the best advantages of budgeting for small businesses.

By budgeting, you can improve your decision-making process as a business owner.

The reason behind this is because you can keep track of your expenses and realize if there has been any improvement or not in your company.

By keeping a budget you can spot which investments are worth keeping, increasing, or cutting off entirely, budgeting helps you keep you focused and gradually improve!

Tips to improve your decision-making process:

1. Set deadlines: this helps you limit your time, stop procrastinating and get into action, as you need to decide before the deadline ends.

2. Limit your choices: this helps you stop getting overwhelmed, and focus on just the most essential choices or tasks you need to do, divide them by importance, urgency, and relevance to your business.

3. Exercise: weird advice? Maybe, but it is related. Exercise releases endorphins which helps you be in a better mood and also calm your mind to make better choices!

3.Reach Your Business Objectives

The benefits of budgeting is a consequence of the previously mentioned benefits. 

Finally, if your decision-making is better, you make choices faster which ends in reaching your goals faster.

• Plus, if you know where to allocate your resources you’ll inevitably start growing faster but also with less financial losses!

Of course, this doesn’t happen overnight and each business has different needs and circumstances.

However, with a budget, every business owner can grow and gradually decrease their overspending mistakes which means more money for your business to grow and reach your goals! 

Note: A disadvantage of budgeting for business owners is also to be rigid and feeling constrained. Sometimes you won’t be open to changes.

But, you need to focus on business goals that will help you have constant sustainable growth, and sometimes this could mean changing your business goals.

If you want to know more about business objectives, check out this useful post by indeed: 13 Important Business Objectives To Consider (Plus The 4 Main Types)

Now that you know the advantages and disadvantages of budgeting in business, let’s see some budgeting planners and digital tools to help you create your own budget.

This process doesn’t have to be overwhelming if you have the right tools!

Best Budgeting Planners & Notebooks

Have you ever heard of budgeting planners & notebooks? 

They are a time saver for the busy owner or for someone who wants to start budgeting but does not know how to start! 

Here are 3 top budgeting planners and notebooks I recommend you check out to gain some of the advantages of budgeting; save time and start saving money! 🙂

1.Clever Fox Budget Planner (Best Overall)

If you are on the hunt for a budget planner clever fox should be one of your top choices, this budget notebook comes with amazing features that customers love, such as:

• 2 pages for writing your strategy and tactics
• 2 pages for tracking savings and 2 for debts tracking
• 2 pages for Christmas budgeting, and 2 for an annual summary to track your progress

Pros?

• Very user friendly
• High-quality paper, very durable
• Good size, not too bulky
• After purchase, you get a digital guide on how to fill out the planner.

Cons?

• Does not have a to-do list section

2. Smart Planner Budget Book (Minimalist Design)

If you just want to make a budget, don’t care about finance stickers, and just want enough space to write down your budget, this is the budget planner for you. 

Some of its features are:

• Account info pages
• List of debts page
• (10) blank note pages
• Yearly savings trackers and debt trackers.

Customers love its simple design and how durable and sturdy it is. 

Pros?

• Bill Organizer for Business
• 176 thick sheets
• Pages where you can write down your passwords and usernames
• You can use it for The Debt-Snowball Method

Cons?

• Comes with already built-in labels for the monthly budget with utilities, so you have to write down your personal label on one side.

3. Legend Budget Planner (Easy to use)

The Legend Budget planner is known for its ease of use, if you don’t how how to start budgeting this budget planner will help you thanks to its secretions such as:

• Year Financial Goals
• Monthly budget review 
• Expenses trackers

Customers love its design and how you can easily organize your monthly goals to see if you have reached them or not.

It is a budget planner that helps you see how you can improve your budget and savings for the upcoming months.

Pros?

• Enough space to write
• Can be used as a yearly, monthly, weekly, or daily tracker and planner
• Easy to follow instructions 

Cons? 

• Not enough space for notes
• Not enough debt trackers for some customers.

Want to read an extensive review about the best budget planners? Check my blog post: 10 Best Budget Planners To Take Control Of Your Finances Now!

Free Budget Tools

We all need a hand sometimes. And, maybe you are not a big fan of notebooks and manual budget planners? Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered! 

The whole point of budgeting is to take control of your financial health and cut costs; luckily for us, we’ve got the internet and all it’s wonders to help us through any hurdle and for free. 

Here are a few FREE budgeting tools to help you get started:

Mint

Improving your financial health shouldn’t come with a cost.

 Mint knows this and offers more than free templates. Their app also advises and gives you the right tools to help you make smarter financial decisions.

The app allows you to see your total balances by bringing all your accounts and finances in one place.

 It also automatically updates and categorizes your information for you, manages your money, and finds savings gaps for you. 

Mint even analyzes the data and makes recommendations based on your lifestyle and goals to help you maximize your savings.

Every Dollar 

Another FREE budgeting tool you can use to help you with your budget is Every Dollar. It’s a budgeting website that allows you to achieve your financial goals by helping you create budgets. 

Every Dollar is also available as a mobile app to make your budgeting plan accessible and more manageable. 

If you’re more of a pen and paper kind of person, you’ll be happy to know that they offer printables too! Sign up is free and you can start right away by inputting your monthly income and expenses.

17 Advantages And Disadvantages Of Budgeting FAQs

1.What Is A Budget? 

A budget is a financial plan for a specific period of time. Why would anyone do that, you ask? 

This is akin to a financial diet. You diet to improve your health, track and manage your weight (loss/gain) progress, right?

Going on a budget helps you plan future expenses, keep track of, manage and improve your financial health. 

Think of it as a forecast of your income and future expenditures or until the date of the financial goal you have to reach.

So, what are the advantages and disadvantages of budgeting? Read on!

2.What Are The 2 Disadvantages Of Budgeting?

Some of the most notable disadvantages of budgeting are:

• Losing time because you need to figure out the right budget method 

• Increase stress because you are more aware of your expenses or because you still don’t know how to properly plan a budget.

Although if you read on, the benefits do outweigh the cons of budgeting.

3.What Are The Advantages Of Budget Budgeting?

Some of the most important advantages of budgeting are:

• Increasing your savings, as you have identified your expendable expenses habits.

• Helps get yourself out of debt faster as you manage your money more efficiently

• Reduces financial stress, you are happier because you get out of debt, which is a  HUGE stress relief. Plus, you gain confidence in yourself!

4.Which Budgeting Method Is Best?

Every business or individual has different budget needs, but some of the best budgeting methods to consider are:

Budget Type	Best For
Zero based budgeting	If you spend money on a whim and need to consistently track your income and expenses.
A rolling budget	If you need to update your budget monthly or very frequently
An activity based budgeting	If you want to achieve a goal, and need a budget that helps you reach it faster.

Conclusion

There you have it, folks. The advantages and disadvantages of budgeting, the different types of budgeting methods (and not to mention their advantages and disadvantages too), budget planners, a FREE PDF, and FREE budgeting tools to get you started on your money saving journey.

I think budgeting is advantageous for many reasons and sure it may not be all fun and games but saving more money and growing my net worth is a goal I’m willing to sacrifice for and work towards –but that’s just my two cents.

What’s your take on this? 

Do you think the disadvantages outweigh the advantages?

Related Posts On Budgeting And Saving: 

• Dave Ramsey Budget Percentages – A Quick Guide

17 Advantages And Disadvantages Of Budgeting (+FREE PDF) [2023 Update]