I agree with no budgeting in your case. It is for people who have trouble with impulse purchases and trouble with saving (unfortunately, most people probably fall in this category). Seems like OP, many other PPs, and I have discipline. I always carry extra cash with no desire to spend it all.

I don't budget on a short-term (monthly) basis but I do keep track of income and expenditures. We save about 80% of what we spend in one year. As long as we stick to our current spending habits and our income is stable, that will continue. If our income drops, I will reassess to see what we can cut back on, but most likely we would simply save less. If our income goes up maybe we can save as much as we spend! Not fixated on any particular numbers.

Budgets are good if you are having a hard time making financial goals. Mint will help you identify if you are spending more than you think you should on certain items. So long as you are on track on your savings and paying off debt, sounds like you don't need to waste time on a budget.
But make sure you are not in denial about goals. And talk to your spouse about financial goals, long and short term.

Anonymous wrote:We don't budget per se. We just know that if we save X, we're on track, and Y is what is left over.

+1. No budget. We max out 401Ks, CSAs, etc., aggressively pay down debt and try to maintain a set dollar amt in savings. Other than that, we spend freely.

Thanks for the thoughts everyone. Seems like the general consensus is to focus on listing out the major expenses (house, kids, retirement, etc.), continue generally being thrify and not sweating the small stuff.

Anonymous wrote:OP, yes, you need a budget. You want to use it to set financial goals. How much do you want to save per year? What is your net worth goal at age 30? 40? 50? When do you want to retire? How much of your future childrens' college expenses do you want to pay for?

How many kids do you want? Have you investigated the costs of childcare? Budgeting can help you with all of this.

OP here. I agree with you with respect to the major items (kids and associated expenses, retirement and soon house purchase) and yes of course we're going to plot out the major components of those expenses and allow for a significant margin beyond those costs to cover day to day needs and savings.

I budget for savings. I know I want to put a certain amount into a 401(k) and my savings account. As long as I hit these goals, I don't worry about it. I am pretty frugal and usually save more than I intend to.

We don't have a formal budget. Like you, we tend to be thrifty, so don't need it to keep spending in check. We put almost all our expenses on Amex, so our monthly statements serve as a check & balance to make sure our overall spending levels haven't changed.

I recently found a list of financial goals my husband and I made when we were newlywed 15 years ago. It was totally off base on predictions of how much we would need to save for various activities.

Tried various budgeting techniques, but IMHO what works best is to set aside a certain (and generous) amount for savings and plan to spend the rest across a few (4-5) expense buckets. Keep the expenses in each buckets in check month over month.
Basically not sweat the small stuff.

I recently took up spending cash for groceries/eating out and love, love, love it.

We don't budget per se. We just know that if we save X, we're on track, and Y is what is left over.

OP we were like you until about age 45. It worked out fine. We bought what we could afford, always paid cash, kept our expenses low, etc. just make sure your money is working for you as much as possible (max out every retirement fund, etc).

We don't have a "formal" budget, but we do budget savings and set various goals. That includes separate accounts for the things we want in the future... a down payment, travel, a treadmill, etc. And then we save aggressively, with large automatic transfers into those accounts. Otherwise, our frugal system is similar to yours, and we don't have a "budget" for food, clothing, etc.--we just spend on what we need. The system has been great for us and we've got a lot more in savings than we would have if we had just been frugal without a larger plan.

OP, yes, you need a budget. You want to use it to set financial goals. How much do you want to save per year? What is your net worth goal at age 30? 40? 50? When do you want to retire? How much of your future childrens' college expenses do you want to pay for?

How many kids do you want? Have you investigated the costs of childcare? Budgeting can help you with all of this.

Yes that's sort of what we do. I only budget for frivolous stuff, like clothing, Christmas gifts and vacations. I mostly use a budget to keep myself in check. I normally give myself $125 a month for clothing/shoes. So when I bought Frye boots ($300) one month, I just didn't buy anything the next month.

Newly married and we're generally in good financial shape (we save a lot, don't eat out much, modest apartment, etc.) but having a really hard time with a formal budget. I've been tracking our expenses on mint a lot closer lately and I'm still having a hard time coming up with a budget as I've always bought what I needed while carefully considering the value and necessity of the purchase as compared to a formal budget where you get a chunk of money to spend every month. In a way, I think we'd waste more money with a budget because it might lead to us spending money just because it's allocated in the budget. There's also a fair amount of transactions that don't neatly fit into any of our categories but I hate the idea of a large "misc." budget.

Obviously, we carefully consider major decisions (car, apartment, etc.) to make sure we can afford it and that it is a good value and we're conscious of how we spend money on smaller decisions (got the cheapest cable package with not many channels, minimal cell phone plan, always buy stuff on sale at the grocery store). So do we really need a formal budget or can we just keep using our method of evaluating the merit of individual purchases?