[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.