[mrpoptart]

It's awesome that you have a budget, and a process for doing it. Would you find it useful to know whether or not you can afford something you're about to buy, be it a taco, a couch or a car? Your budget works well in as a reflection process, my budget gives you the constant knowledge of how you're doing right now and how you'll probably be doing in the future.

[peter303]

I use a spreadsheet with rows bulk spending categories and columns months, plus a few summary columns. More than 15 years ago it was just a table on graph paper. I know within a few dollars how much I have earned spent in the past 12 months. The 'budget' is awareness of such spending and trying to keep not much more than the previous year. Stuff happens like a dead car, hospital stay, job change etc. so its not always firm.