Have you ever noticed that just about everything is done online these days? Sure, everyone uses email — and of course, Netflix and other streaming services have taken pride of place over television in most people’s entertainment arsenals — but it goes a lot deeper than that.

Taxes are increasingly managed online. Budgeting is handled online. Even our to-do lists and calendars tend to be digitized, more often than not.

Of course, that’s not all a bad thing. Digital tools can be a godsend for various reasons — particularly for financial management. Online banking allows you to get an instant overview of your finances in the blink of an eye, and with a quick web search you can identify new banks with the best deposit rates, and open up an account in record time.

But when it comes to the nitty-gritty of budgeting, is it really best to use an ultra-complex digital cloud-based tool, or not?

Here are a few arguments in favor of budgeting in the old-fashioned way; with pen and Paper.

Writing on paper forces you to be more mindful and engaged than typing things out on a computer does.

Interestingly, researchers have found that students who take notes on paper enjoy a better understanding of the subject, and better recall of their notes, than students who typed out their notes on a computer.

The key here seems to be that typing is such a streamlined and effortless process that it allows for more or less instant-transcription, without much thought.

Handwriting — since it’s slower and requires more focus — forces you to be more mindful about what you write, and to understand and condense the information.

The same might be true for budgeting. When you calculate and write out your daily expenses, and your monthly allowances, you have to really engage with the subject in a meaningful way. When using a high-powered budgeting app that imports transactions from your online banking account, on the other hand, you likely overlook a lot.

Budgeting on paper forces you to stay up-to-date more consistently.

Generally speaking, Digital Budgeting Programs are more forgiving than paper budgets. They allow you to quite easily catch up after neglecting your budget for a month, or to import your bank transactions automatically, or to just open a new, fresh budget from scratch.

Paper budgets become a pain when neglected, and they almost demand daily updates to stay manageable and relevant.

In theory, this might force you to remain more mindful of your spending on a day-to-day basis, which in turn can prevent poor, spur-of-the-moment financial decisions.

Budgeting on paper forces you to focus on the core essentials, and not get too carried away on irrelevant minutiae.

Many digital budgeting programs contain an inordinate amount of data, pages of various metrics, complex comparison graphs, and more.

All of this stuff may look great at first glance, but is it adding much to your ability to budget responsibly, day by day? Well, maybe not.

Budgeting on paper makes it very difficult to get bogged down focusing on irrelevant minutiae. Instead, it forces you to focus on the core essentials — the things that matter most to your everyday financial wellbeing.