The Benefits of Budgeting

[cypher1]

I don't follow a strict budget either. I know exactly how much I save and how much I have, but I really don't pay too much attention to what I spend. I'm conscious of what I spend and I don't splurge. But, I don't track every dollar. I have the money to cover a layoff or an unexpected event, and I have a loose idea of what I would need for X amount of time. I also have areas that I could easily cut back on to save money should I need to.

I'm pretty much in the same situation. As long as I'm paying myself first a certain percentage+covering needs from each paycheck, anything left over is there to spend now or later.

[sblatner]

I don't budget but I do track all of our spending and have since 1992 - the year we started using Quicken. Both my husband and I are the same in regards to money (we aren't spenders) so it is easy to not budget. We just don't spend money wastefully and we talk about what we are going to spend money on.

[Permanent Temp]

I don't budget per se. I have calculated out what I need to spent on bills each month and figured out goals I'd like to meet in savings and in my mini bucket accounts (Gift Fund, Christmas Fund etc.)

After all the bills are taken out I see how much money is left over and think about what we have to spent that week (groceries, upcoming birthdays events etc). Then I figure out the least amount I could get by on that week and take it out of the bank. The rest of the money goes toward a savings goal and/or some debt (like my last cc balance.)

We don't have a we spent x amount of money on this or that a month thing though. I use mint to figure out if I'm over spending in the regard and if I am then I make a point to cut down the amount of times we go out a month, buy coffee etc. Mint has helped me save a lot of money. When I first used it I was spending $90 a month on coffee and $300-500 on eating out. That was insane. Now I'm down to $20-35 a month in coffee and $200 or less in eating out. Still working on getting that down.

[FrugalSensei]

I don't currently maintain a budget because I am in a financially comfortable situation. "Comfortable" meaning rough knowledge of what's coming in, what's going out, and what's sitting around is good enough. That being said, for the moments when really tightening the financial belt is necessary I totally believe that knowing your finances is the only way to gain control over them and the only way to truly know every detail of your finances is to maintain a budget.

However, "budgeting" and "maintaining a budget" are different. I haven't maintained a budget in years but I have been budgeting my entire life.

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The Frugal Sensei

http://www.frugalsensei.com/finance/budgeting