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 readers to get money off their mind and live the lives they want.