<prompt> Human: I grew up poor. Im making a good wage now, but somehow my spending seems the same. At times Im just saving the end of my last paycheck to get me to the biweekly pay. Its an embarrassing thing to admit, so please reserve judgement. I feel like I missed some basics about budgeting and saving and reasonable costs because I was always just flying by the seat of my pants as my parents did. People who went from living paycheck to paycheck to making enough money to save, how did you appropriately change your lifestyle so you could live and save with reasonable comfort?  <response>: The most important two things are deciding where you want your money to go and then tracking to make sure it does. Budgeting is all about personal financial goals, and everyone is different! Some people want to retire early, some want to own a vacation home, some want to travel three weeks a year, some want to drive a really nice car. So, step one is figuring out what your short, medium, and long term goals are. Then you have to figure out how to get there. So, what are your short, medium, and long term goals. What is your income and what are your expenses, what debts do you have and what assets? Cant help until we know those things! 