[8note]

If they were budgeting, they wouldn't be living paycheck to paycheck. It makes the budgeting more challenging to give the government and interest free loan.

However, giving the government an automatic loan means that a land lord cannot charge that much more in rent, and the owner does get to spend it eventually, rather than throwing it into a rent pit

[Sohcahtoa82]

> If they were budgeting, they wouldn't be living paycheck to paycheck

You are insultingly out of touch.

I'd like to paint you my picture of my life in 2009 and then compare it to today's numbers.

I was making $10.75/hr at a Subway, working ~38 hours/week. That's ~$1600 pretax, about $1,200 post-tax. Expenses:

Rent (Single-bedroom apartment): 650 car insurance: 75 water/sewage/garbage: 40 internet: 30 phone: 30 electricity: 50

That left me with $325/month to pay for gas (luckily I loved only ~3 miles from work, so that didn't cost me much), food, and entertainment. $10/day for food wasn't terrible, but it's not exactly steak and seafood, either. And remember, that $10/day is supposed to include entertainment as well. Honestly, it wasn't really THAT bad. Buuuuut....

Minimum wage increases have happened, but rent has gone up too. That job would now pay $15/hr, ($2280 for 38 hours pretax, ~$1710 post-tax), but the rent on that exact same unit is now $1,200/month.

Assuming all other bills remained the same (they wouldn't), I'd now be left with only $285/month for food. And with over 15 years of inflation, that $285 is worth significantly less.

At that point, even with budgeting, I'd still be living paycheck-to-paycheck. When wages don't keep up with the cost of living, you can't budget your way out of it.

To make it worse, that kind of living starts to take its toll on mental health. You feel like you're constantly drowning. That $4 coffee or the meal at Taco Bell will be your only source of real joy between each paycheck.

[Broken_Hippo]

If they were budgeting, they wouldn't be living paycheck to paycheck.

This is false. You simply aren't going to be able to budget your way into riches if you don't have enough money to go around. If you don't believe me, limit yourself to a minimum wage budget with no startup savings (and no borrowing off of others) and tell me how you are doing in a year... and then tell me how you'd survive the next few years on this. If minimum wage is too little, try setting the income at just over the mark you'd have for assistance.

Alternatively, if you have enough money to cover reasonable expenses, some fun, and have a little leftover, you don't really have to budget if you don't tend to spend lots. If I have enough money, I don't really have to budget.

[smrq]

Other replies are going hard on the initial assertion but missing the point, on which you're totally right. There is no reason where it's theoretically advantageous to give the government an interest free loan (overpay on your taxes) and get it back later in refund form, than to simply not do that and have the money in the meantime. Take the money you were giving to the government and put it in a savings account instead, and now you at least have minimal interest. (Hell, take it and put it in a safe and at least the government doesn't get to spend it on $thing-you-disagree-with-ideologically.) There's no difference in what you can do with untouchable money in the government's pocket vs. untouchable money in yours.

Whether you have the willpower to not touch it instead of increasing your food budget from $10 to $11 or whatever is a different story, and speaks to the mentality: if you never got the money in the first place, you can't be tempted to spend it.