@Joy – Good questions! Planning some other person’s idealized budget I’ve realized that I’d like to eat out more, travel more, and go to more music concerts. All of which are totally financially feasible. I just need the kick in the pants to do it.

I have a list of questions I ask myself when I’m considering or starting a project. Two of them are (and I think I probably stole these from A Kick in the Seat of the Pants by Roger Von Oech):
What would I do if I had all the money in the world?
What would I do if had no money at all?

The answers are often revealing. Sometimes I find myself setting off on a project as if I had no money to devote to it, when, in fact, I do. (Losing weight was one of those–I couldn’t spend three months at a spa, but I could go get a massage). At other times, a simple answer comes out of that “no money” question — that gets the whole project done faster, easier, and cheaper. Or helps me choose not to do the project at all.