This week, Al is starting to work with some budget guidelines in his life to help him manage money and plan certain aspects of his life. I’m not the biggest fan of the concept of a budget at all, but it is an effective tool to meet financial goals and I am all about empowering my kids with tools that will help them succeed. It’s really funny, though, how his choices are shifting in order that he remain in those guidelines. Things that he was adamant about having – insisting that they were necessities – have become options or even things to put off in the future.