[Vohlenzer]

I too got bored of having to go through every little transaction and categorising them according to my budget. I had already simplified my expenses budget down to three categories; essentials, luxuries and goals.

My solution was to open a dedicated current account and or credit card for each category. This makes assigning a category to transactions simple because I know which budget category each account is designated to.

This also helps with day-to-day budgeting because I have setup scheduled transactions to top-up my essentials and luxuries bank accounts with the correct amount of funds from my savings. A side effect is the stark reminder that using the credit cards eats away my goals budget because I've already spent my allocated funds for essentials or luxuries.

One downside here is losing the credit card protection on some purchases. The work around is to transfer funds back to savings when making these purchases. Another is that it's difficult to adopt immediately because opening several accounts may affect credit rating or rouse suspicion from financial institutions.