The first step in motivating yourself to keep a budget is to realize that everyone who ever got and stayed rich have one thing in common: they know how and keep a budget. Start by reading a few biographies of your favorite rich people. See if their circumstances at any time match yours now. If they say anything about saving, putting money in a retirement account, or making sacrifices then they were budgeting. How does this motivate you to start a budget? Well, do you want to get rich and stay that way? There's lots of ways to get rich, and even more ways to go broke, but only one way to stay rich and that is through budgeting. If you keep that at the forefront of your mind, you are much more likely to start (and keep) a budget.

Once you've taken a good look at everyone who is rich and has stayed that way, you can really get motivated to make a budget, but the first step in staying motivated to keep a budget has to come from inside yourself. Stay motivated to keep a budget and make it easy by setting goals for what you want to do with your money and when you want to do it. A dream vacation, your favorite car, or a home you can grow old in can all be goals that can motivate you to keep a budget. Dream big; the bigger you dream, the better you'll budget. Let's take the example of setting the goal to take the family on a cruise. Be realistic about when you want to take them by finding the exact price of the exact cruise you want to take, figuring out how much money you can actually save each month, and how long it will take to save enough to pay for everyone to go. If you have the realistic parameters in your mind and give yourself an exact amount of time to do it in, you are more likely not to make frivolous purchases that could waylay your plans.

To keep your goals in the forefront of your mind so they motivate you to keep a budget, try some self visualization. Taking the cruise as an example again, make a poster of the places you'll see on your cruise and the activities you want to participate in. Keep the poster where the whole family can see it with a jar under it for family contributions to pay for activities to do aboard the cruise. Talk about the cruise with your family often and picture yourselves aboard the ship. Whenever you go to make a purchase, ask yourself if you need what you are buying. If you don't really need it, ask yourself if you want this item now or your future cruise more. Setting a realistic goal for what you want to do with your money and visualizing achieving your goal can really help you stay motivated to keep a budget and become a better you.