Nairobi, June 16 -- I earn Sh100,000 net monthly income, but somehow always run out of money by the 20th. Is there a realistic budgeting method that actually works for someone who has tried and failed multiple times?

There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes with earning what most of us would call "a decent salary" and still feeling perpetually behind. It carries a quiet shame that is hard to talk about.

You can't exactly complain to colleagues who earn less, and your family assumes that at your income level, money is no longer a real concern. So, you carry it in silence; the spreadsheets you've abandoned, the budgeting apps you downloaded and deleted, the January promises that barely survived February.

A friend, a mid-level ...