Track every dollar you spend. Check your account balances once a week. Always pay off your credit card bill in full. Make a budget—and stick to it. These are just a few of the edicts you'll find in virtually every personal finance book. But this kind of rigid, one‑size-fits‑all advice—usually written for and by wealthy white men (and a few women) with little perspective on the money struggles that many people face—is unrealistic, and only creates stress and shame.

As a financial journalist and educator, Dana Miranda is on a mission to liberate readers from budget culture: the damaging set of beliefs around money that rely on restriction, shame, and greed—much like diet culture does for food and bodies. In this long‑overdue alternative to traditional budgeting advice, Miranda offers a new approach that makes money easy for everyone, regardless of the numbers in their bank account.

Full of counterintuitive advice—like how to use debt to support your life goals, how to plan for retirement without a 401K, and how to take advantage of resources that exist to support those left behind by the forces of capitalism—You Don’t Need a Budget will empower listeners to get money off their mind and live the lives they want.