One of the perennial pieces of advice for improving your personal finances is to establish a budget and then aim to live within it. The concept is tried and true. There’s just one problem: many people are repelled by the concept.

But whether you have a knee-jerk reaction against the general idea of budgeting, or are put off by the amount of work you imagine it will require, there are different ways to think about it and shortcuts for doing it that may make it work for even the most averse.

For one, the word “budgeting” can be problematic, triggering an almost allergic reaction in some because it sounds so constraining. Contrast that with instead calling it a “spending plan”, which can feel much more liberating because it highlights that you still get to spend.

As for feeling overwhelmed by the perceived work of planning, there are many ways to make this more manageable. That’s because there are no rules on how broad or how granular you categorize your spending.

For instance, you could simply track your spending according to four or five simple buckets, such as housing, transportation, living expenses, and savings/debt reduction. Or maybe food, gas, utilities, spending, and saving. How you slice it is up to you.

Simpler still is determining how much you typically spend per month and aiming to stay below, or even underspend, that amount each month. Instead of tracking categories, this method has you simply noticing your spending level as the calendar month wears on, and aiming to keep it below your threshold by the end of the month.

The most important goal for a spending plan is to simply establish and maintain one. Far less important is whether you track a monthly amount, four broad spending categories, or two dozen detailed categories.