I’m throwing together this Monday post at the last minute, because I got absolutely no writing done yesterday. Because my Beloved and I were busy working on our budget. Because we busted our budget for July. And then after we did the budget, we went shopping.

Okay, I’m kinda jumping to the end of the story.

I sometimes walk in the morning at the mall near my Firstborn’s school. I’ve even been doing so during July, because she’s been going to summer school (which is a different story). One of the problems with walking the mall is that it makes me want to go shopping. Now, I’m not normally the shopaholic-type. But the sounds, smells, sights of the mall, it does something to you. The effect is part marketing genius and part the rush of adrenaline that you get when you buy something. But when you’re on a tight budget, you have no money for shopping. So walking the mall leaves me with this unmet desire.

According to Dave Ramsey, money arguments are the number-one cause of marital strife.

Now, I’m not sure where he got that factoid. And I don’t actually know whether it’s true, because marriages—as all relationships—are more complex and nuanced than a single cause. Regardless, it is surely true that money arguments are a leading factor in failing marriages.

In early 2009, after a series of bad software development jobs, I sunk into a deep depression. At the time, I attributed my mood to the bankruptcy of the software industry— And I still believe the industry in general is broken in several key areas, and needs to be fixed. But I later discovered, my problem was mostly connected to my own reactions, my own thoughts, going through my own mind, what Perry Marshall calls “inner head trash."