Ever since I was a little kid, Ive had an affinity for numbers.

This post originally appeared onThe Simple Dollar.

Their gifts and talents lie elsewhere, and tables and rows of numbers dont come easily to them.

The idea of a budgetone of those formalized budgets that you see in personal finance booksseems like torture.

But first there are a few key principles to know that apply to all of these budgeting strategies.

For some people, that can be invaluable.

So, here are four things that you should take to heart if you try outanyof these budgeting methods.

First,dont use credit cards until you might make these budgets work.Just dont use them.

Third,tracking your spending isincrediblyuseful, even if youre not number-friendly.

Finally,there is no quick path to riches.It doesnt exist.

This isnt a sprintits a marathon.

Now, onward with the strategies.

Subtraction Budgeting

Subtraction budgeting is probably the easiest form of budgeting that there is.

Just add up all of your bills in a given month.

The remaining amount is how much you’re free to spend in a given month.

The savings part serves a few purposes.

For one, it helps to cover you in the event of an emergency, like a car breakdown.

It can also be used to cover irregular bills, like insurance.

Youll want to stick that savings part directly into your savings account.

But how much savings?

One good way to do it is to save as much as you have to freely spend.

Just remember that you’re gonna wanna keep your balance above that amount.

When doing this, its important to remember all of your bills, including ones that are paid automatically.

If you forget the automatic bills, youre very likely to find yourself overdrafting.

This is so easy, anyone who can manage addition and subtraction on a calculator can do it.

Youre just adding up numbers, then subtracting a few numbers, and thats it.

It tells you how much you have to spend.

When that happens, its incredibly easy to make financial mistakes.

This ones also very simple (which, I suppose, is the theme here).

You just doallof your budgeting in cash, or as much of it as humanly possible.

However, for things like entertainment or groceries, cash is incredibly easy to use.

That card can potentially be used to pay for small recurring bills like Netflix.

Over the course of a pay period, you might literally watch your money deplete over time.

Proportional budgeting means that you split your money among these three categories in a very clear way.

Most of that is awant.

A brand new car?

Anything above a reliable late model used car is awant.

Two Bank Budgeting

Two bank budgeting is built around the concept of paying yourself first.

With this bang out of budgeting, you start by opening a checking account at a second bank.

So, lets look at a full example of this.

You get paid $1,000 every two weeks.

This money now goes into a checking account at a new bank.

Then, a few days after that, $900 gets automatically transferred into your normal checking account.

$100 remains behind in the new account each paycheck.

It also forces you to live on a little bit less money than before.

This isnt a bad thing; it simply requires you to chop off some of your least important expenses.

At this point, this is basically the kind of budgeting that we use for our family.

We also set money automatically aside for free spending, too.

Once youve got this set up, its about as easy as can be.

Final Thoughts

Each of these strategies has benefits and flaws.

Others take a ton of up-front work but help a lot with day-to-day choices.

It doesnt have to be endless calculations.

If a bunch of columns and rows overwhelm you, dont worry.

There are other approaches.

Does Budgeting Seem Too Complex?

Image byStockshoppe(Shutterstock).