Budgeting should be considered an important part of Neopian life. After all a good budget can help you to create a very healthy bank account. Unfortunately among Neopians and people in general budgeting is often associated with being poor. I have to challenge this idea, as budgeting is one of the most useful things around. Budgeting is not merely someone buying the 'no-name' brands rather than the items with expensive ad campaigns it is someone who thinks about what they're buying and watches their NP flow, making sure that they save a good amount.

You only budget when you're poor, I'm not poor so I'm not going to budget. I really hope that you are not thinking this to yourself. Once you get trapped in this mindset you wont be able to use budgeting to your advantage. Many people budget and they budget with different goals in mind.

Budgeting Because You Are Poor
This is the one that sadly everyone thinks of first so I thought that I would address it first. A budget for a person without an awful lot to spend is usually aimed at minimising costs. The budget should be used as I said to minimise costs so that NP is being left over that can be saved or invested. When I say invested I'm not recommending the Stock Market, I can't play it at all myself, rather I'm talking about using earned NP to stock a shop as a means of making more NP. But take note that not everyone works out how to be a successful shopkeeper and many people continue to rely on their winnings from the many games on Neopets.

Budgeting to Save NP
I really hope that this was an obvious one; while budgeting can help you to pull yourself out of that poor category it can also help you get the things you want. Remember that budgeting really is a tool to help you save NP and many people although not poor still have to work at saving NP before they can buy some of the items that they want; like paint brushes.

That elusive rare item
Saving up to buy some elusive rare item is a common reason for budgeting. Unfortunately our wants usually always cause us to desire something that we just cannot afford to buy. For this reason budgeting helps to save the NP and eventually allow you to buy that dream item rather than having to simply continue to walk past that shop window ever more knowing that you'll never be able to have whatever it is: Faerie paint brush, baby paint brush, Ona etc.

The gallery
Creating a gallery is something that is surely causing a lot of people to budget at the moment. With the addition of the Gallery Spotlight and the irrefutable fact that every gallery theme contains at least one unbuyable of rather expensive item means that in order to complete a gallery either something will have to be omitted or some serious saving will have to take place. Saving = budget and here it is again.

The Budget
The only items that you absolutely have to buy are food items so rather than buying foods that cost around 300 NP they may choose to rely partially on their free Jelly from the Giant Jelly in the Jelly World and Omelette from the Giant Omelette in Tyrannia. This free helping of food is not designed to wholly support you and if you have three or four pets you will probably have to buy some food as well, using the free food as just a helping hand. Buying cheaper foods for your pets will save you a lot of NP but the rest of the article save the last paragraph outlines how this budget would be used to achieve your goal of either pulling yourself out of the poor category or buying that rare item that you dreamed of.

For the poor budgeter
At first with this kind of budget you may have to forgo extra treats for your pets such as petpets, Battledome items and a NeoHome but make sure that you do buy your pet some toys and every now and then maybe lash out and buy your pet a book to read.

You are using your budget to save NP so that in the future you don't have to run such a mean budget and can start buying some of the more luxurious items that are available for you and your pet.

It's really easy to tell when you don't have to omit so many things from your budget. Once you can buy food and plenty of it for your pets, buy them some more expensive toys and some more books. Having done this you may have to keep playing games and save some more NP. After some time and after you've saved some NP you might buy your pet some Battledome items and try out the Battledome, but beware that this can become an expensive venture. Another thing that was sacrificed for a little while was a petpet. There are a whole host of petpets to choose from and think about it, don't fall in love with the petpet that costs 1,000,000 NP just yet aim a little lower and look around at the petpets that can be bought from people for under 2,500 NP.

Finally when you've got NP to burn, I'd say over 10,000 NP, you can start looking at the finer things in life. You can really have a serious look at having some pay back on the Pant Devil in the Battledome and if you like you can start building a NeoHome but make sure you plan it; there's nothing worse than knocking 5,000 NP worth of room down because you didn't think about where the doors needed to be.

Basically for a summary of how this budget works, start with only the necessities and work your way up. As you get more NP you can start indulging in different types of items but be careful to not start spending on something before you can afford it.
E.g.: Don't buy your first Battledome item for 4,800 NP when you only have 5,000 NP wait a bit.

For the budgeter who's saving up
I'm assuming that you weren't in the poor category and had worked out a way of living in a sustainable fashion, so all you need to know is that you should keep budgeting until you have 5,000 NP or so more than you need to buy the item then buy the item. So the main advice is to make sure you'll have some NP left over after you buy the item.

I have to admit that when I started writing this article I didn't think that the two main reasons for budgeting would end up with pretty much the same budgeting idea behind them. But that just goes to show you that the less you spend that more you will be left with at the end. I promise that I didn't mean for that to rhyme but it's a good little slogan for saving and budgeting. The general idea as I've mentioned so many time is to save NP and that's what minimising your costs or budgeting does. Just don't think that it's only poor people who budget.