At higher incomes, budgeting will mean something different than at lower incomes. But everyone should still have a budget, OP.

Anonymous wrote:define "budget" first. We don't look at price tags closely for grocery shopping, but don't have an extravagant spending habit either.

That’s the real question. I don’t have a “budget” for daily expenses, but DH and I are not out buying Ferraris, either. I keep an eye on my credit card total, and I try to keep out travel expenditures to around $30,000 a year. Is that a “budget?”

define "budget" first. We don't look at price tags closely for grocery shopping, but don't have an extravagant spending habit either.

We have a HHI of -$200k. We don’t budget - meaning we don’t preset amounts in categories for spending (eg vacation, food, clothing, entertainment…..). We do set up our savings and keep track of our historical spending but we have never really adjusted our spending based on that. We have been married 28 years.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We earn eight figures and budget. We want to grow savings not blow through it.

My god, what could you possibly spend it on? We are very HHI. By $2M our 4 largest expenses in order were investments, taxes, house expenses and charitable deductions. As it when up from there house expenses lowered and the other 3 increased. Given that they are discretionary I cannot imagine what what would need to budget for at a consistent 8 figures.

We want this to last for generations to come.

And you’re concerned that if you only put $4.5M in investments vs $4.7M one year, it would make a difference? I’m curious which categories of budgeting expenses are you concerned that you would overspend if you didn’t budget?

It's not so much "concern" but interest. We won't buy our daughters $100 articles of clothing for example, because they are growing and it's a waste to spend that much now. I have a friend who replaces her sheets and towels every year, but we wouldn't do that. She also gets a new car every other year. Another buys new clothes each season and wouldn't wear a swimsuit from last year. It's mostly the day to day things, with some larger items tossed in.

I retired a decade early and now have a $7!million net worth. We live off of investment earnings and income from two rental properties. We don’t exactly “budget,” I guess, but we track monthly expenses carefully with an app and know exactly what and on what we spend. It’s allowed us to know almost intuitively at this point what’s gonna work and what isn’t when it comes to expenditures.

At different levels of income, you budget for different things. Planned investment is a budget. I make $200k a year. I don’t worry about paying the mortgage. I do plan for paying for college. I did Dr change my spending habits from when I was making $150k, so the extra adds up nicely. Someone making much more than me could be budgeting for a second or third home, private plane, or year at sea.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We earn eight figures and budget. We want to grow savings not blow through it.

My god, what could you possibly spend it on? We are very HHI. By $2M our 4 largest expenses in order were investments, taxes, house expenses and charitable deductions. As it when up from there house expenses lowered and the other 3 increased. Given that they are discretionary I cannot imagine what what would need to budget for at a consistent 8 figures.

We want this to last for generations to come.

And you’re concerned that if you only put $4.5M in investments vs $4.7M one year, it would make a difference?

I’m curious which categories of budgeting expenses are you concerned that you would overspend if you didn’t budget?

Anonymous wrote:I don't budget. I earn $170K. I have a lot of things direct deposited into a lot of different buckets (checking, e-savings, taxable investment, HYSA etc) and then just schedule bills (only debt is my mid-$100k mortgage) and spend whatever I like.

How do you get it direct dep. into multiple diff accounts?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We earn eight figures and budget. We want to grow savings not blow through it.

My god, what could you possibly spend it on? We are very HHI. By $2M our 4 largest expenses in order were investments, taxes, house expenses and charitable deductions. As it when up from there house expenses lowered and the other 3 increased. Given that they are discretionary I cannot imagine what what would need to budget for at a consistent 8 figures.

We want this to last for generations to come.

Anonymous wrote:We earn eight figures and budget. We want to grow savings not blow through it.

My god, what could you possibly spend it on? We are very HHI. By $2M our 4 largest expenses in order were investments, taxes, house expenses and charitable deductions. As it when up from there house expenses lowered and the other 3 increased. Given that they are discretionary I cannot imagine what what would need to budget for at a consistent 8 figures.

I don't budget. I earn $170K. I have a lot of things direct deposited into a lot of different buckets (checking, e-savings, taxable investment, HYSA etc) and then just schedule bills (only debt is my mid-$100k mortgage) and spend whatever I like.

We earn eight figures and budget. We want to grow savings not blow through it.

$800k

Not looking for people who don’t budget (since some who don’t budget probably should) but rather for the highest income where someone is still budgeting.