Here's what I do. I don't really budget, but I do have a spreadsheet where I track the end of month balances of my cash accounts. And while I don't have a budget, I do expect that my cash balance will increase a set amount each month (for instance $1500). If my cash accounts have $10,000 at the end of January, I expect that I should have $11,500 at the end of February. While it never works out as planned, the key thing is that overall, my cash is almost always increasing at an average of $1500 per month. If for some reason it doesn't, I can identify the expense that was the issue (last year I had a crown for my tooth, so for that month my savings decreased a bit rather than increased). Once my cash accounts reached the level that I wanted for my emergency fund, I continued until my balances are $10,000 above my emergency fund, then take that $10K and invest it. Rinse and repeat.
$1K is low for an emergency fund (though it's not clear if you have $1K set aside in addition to what you call too much money sitting in checking/savings). I suggest taking the time to build the emergency fund up to what you feel is adequate, and then to invest anything over that as it builds up. For me, the tracking of my cash and watching it increase every month is a bit of a game. As long as it generally increases month after month I know that my spending is in check without actually dealing with a monthly budget.
