anyone stop tracking their budget?

[partgypsy]

I have been, I don't for the last 10 years tracking my budget. First more simply, but now I have gotten to point of tracking what I spend in multiple categories. I don't use mint because the way they group things isnt the way I would (same with the way my cc creates a yearly snapshot).  Anyways I haven't gotten around to it and haven't tracked the last 4? months and me attempting to do so over the break, just felt like too much. I can easily figure out my ingo, outgo and net savings, but putting each expense in the correct category will take time. Did anyone ever "stop" tracking or budgeting? Or did they ever shift to a more simple system? I feel like in the past it WAS helpful for me to track, because I could see areas where I wanted to change and then work on those areas. Im now in a place despite some big expenses, have been able to increase my emergency fund every month, and it feels less useful?

[HPstache]

Not having a budget is a very popular sentiment on this forum.  We still do it, but I could easily see us stopping in the future.  I think it's a lot easier if you are single or if both spouses are natural frugal / savers.  If you have a non frugal spouse, budgets are going to be very important to visually keep finances on track and set some agreed upon limits.

[vand]

IME You don't really need to continue to track it once you have a good grasp of your spending. I can do it pretty much all mentally in my head and know what I've spent over the last week.

The brain becomes very good at estimating total amounta once it gets attuned. For example, myself and a lot of other people will be able to fill up a shopping trolly of food and have a very good idea at the end the sum total down to a few $$s.

[lhamo]

I used to be pretty disciplined/rigid about tracking both spending and net worth.  Had an elaborate spreadsheet that I updated at least 3-4x/week.  Stopped a year or two into FIRE once we sold our expensive condo in Beijing and clearly didn't need to worry about money any more.  I do use online account aggregators (originally yodlee moneycenter, then switched to mint) to keep an eye on things. Part of that is to make sure no one messes with our accounts (had a credit card stolen recently and still trying to untangle the mess from that).

Even when I was tracking rigorously we never really budgeted, per se.  If I noticed spending in certain categories was creeping up I'd cut back on splurges in those areas.  Groceries, travel and electronics were the main areas that usually happened in. We just aren't big spenders on other stuff.

One of the reasons I started tracking the net worth was to see what happened during the 2008/09 crash.  I am kind of glad I have those records, which show the effects of the drop ("lost" about 20% on paper) and then the subsequent climb.  We bought our condo at a very good price at the bottom of the dip in early 2009, and once our spending had stabilized around the new mortgage we started piling money in to retirement and kids college fund. Turned out very well for us.

[Metalcat]

I have never had a budget and only tracked very briefly. I know how much money comes in, and I can mentally track how much we spend with pretty good accuracy.

I haven't tracked in years and I've never had a month where I wasn't reasonably accurate about how much money should be left over, and that's without seeing the accounts because all of our day to day goes through DH's account and then he sends me what's leftover, but I always know how much is coming.

[Shane]

Before FIRE, we never tracked spending, because it didn't matter as much. It was easy to see that most of our income was going into savings and investments, every month. Since FIREing in 2016, we've been dutifully using AndroMoney to track all of our spending. If anything, keeping a close eye on spending in FIRE seems like it allows us to feel comfortable spending much more than we would be inclined to otherwise. As naturally frugal people, DW & I would probably never feel okay spending as much as we have been in retirement, if it weren't for the fact that we can easily look at our spending history, over the past 67 months, and see that we're way below what we could be spending. For 2021, we're on track to spend about 2.3% of total invested assets. Knowing that, and being able to see the numbers in black and white, makes it much easier to relax and feel okay about going out to dinner, once in a while, buying a new bicycle, taking a trip, or whatever.

[Zikoris]

I imagine at some point we'll stop tracking due to future complexity - we plan to eventually do a lot of long term travel, which will involve a lot of foreign currency and cash transactions. I would still keep track of the total spending amount, since that's simple enough to do.

I wouldn't say I find tracking particularly useful or valuable now, but it's just plain interesting to see long term data. It's really low effort for me since I've got Mint set up really well, so it's not like I'm manually entering stuff.

[FIRE Artist]

I have never budgeted, but did track my expenses when I first moved back to Canada and into my house, I felt that I really needed to do that because I had not clue how much it cost to live. 

Now I just sum up my fixed expense once a year to give an idea how things are changing with inflation, but that is about it.

[marty998]

Haven't had a budget in years. I forecast the next couple of months of expenses, and keep enough cash in the odd event that rent doesn't come through on my investment properties. It has heppend a few time over the covid lockdowns, proving the merits of having buffers to sleep at night.

Given that I am now the one who transfers the funds between the corporate bank accounts at work it's unlikely I won't be paid my salary on time, so there's also that SANF :)

[K_in_the_kitchen]

We use YNAB (and have since it's first release, with a break of a couple of years).  But it's gotten to the place where it seems pointless.  We see the assigned category amounts as guidelines, but we can always move from other categories and nothing is really set in stone.  If it's the end of the month and we want to get takeout burritos despite having emptied the $50 allotted at the beginning of the month, we do it and transfer the funds from an underspent category.

It's just not simple enough-- I've realized the categories don't really matter as long as we aren't spending more than we think we should be.  I think I will still track what we spend as a step-down to not budgeting at all, but just in a general way, with far fewer categories.  I'm thinking along the lines of four allocations: discretionary, fixed, college, and general savings.  We should make the final tuition payments in December 2022, and in 2023 I'm thinking we make it as simple as transferring all but a set amount monthly to the savings account (or even easier, change the direct deposit to the money market and transfer our monthly expenses to the checking).

[Zhiantara]

When I had a low and inconsistent income I tracked everything. I knew how much I had to set aside each fortnight for each of my bills and recorded everything by hand in a money column book.

Now I'm on an average and consistent income I don't bother (it took 3 years to be able to actually let it go though). I just pay my bills online as soon as they come in and while I'm logged in review my accounts for any issues. As long as the amount left over each fortnight is roughly what I expect then I know I'm on track - and often it's actually more than I expect.

I do still have a budget that I update. It's in a spreadsheet, so I just add a line for the new expense, check if there's anything that needs to be removed, let the spreadsheet add everything up and, if I'm happy with the numbers, move on with my life.

But I probably wouldn't have been able to move to the low effort system without first having done the tracking.

[Travis]

We use YNAB (and have since it's first release, with a break of a couple of years).  But it's gotten to the place where it seems pointless.  We see the assigned category amounts as guidelines, but we can always move from other categories and nothing is really set in stone.  If it's the end of the month and we want to get takeout burritos despite having emptied the $50 allotted at the beginning of the month, we do it and transfer the funds from an underspent category.

It's just not simple enough-- I've realized the categories don't really matter as long as we aren't spending more than we think we should be.  I think I will still track what we spend as a step-down to not budgeting at all, but just in a general way, with far fewer categories.  I'm thinking along the lines of four allocations: discretionary, fixed, college, and general savings.  We should make the final tuition payments in December 2022, and in 2023 I'm thinking we make it as simple as transferring all but a set amount monthly to the savings account (or even easier, change the direct deposit to the money market and transfer our monthly expenses to the checking).

This is where we're at. Still using YNAB4 and keeping the ledger updated to the penny; however, it's not because we're worried about going over budget and coming up short.  It's still an easy place to see money in and money out to include how much is available for investing. I'll put a figure in there for groceries or eating out knowing full well it'll probably be over that by 10-20%.  It also provides a good source of data to keep my MadFientist spreadsheets updated.  Total time spent on it is maybe 20 minutes/month.  Once we FIRE in a couple years I'll probably keep using it until I'm comfortable with that income/spending dynamic.

[Abe]

We also tracked closely when our incomes were lower (almost a decade total). Now our frugal habits are pretty fixed and by far our largest expenses are stable things like taxes + mortgage. Everything else is essentially a wash at this point. The monthly variance on our budget is quite low, and there’s not much left to optimize unless we stopped buying new clothes or toys for our kid. Not doing either of those, so mostly just use the spending alerts to surveil for any signs of fraud.

[AccidentialMustache]

We don't budget, but we do track. I don't expect us to stop, because with data you can look back, see trends, and take action easily. Any sort of human estimation introduces error and it isn't that hard to track. Budget google sheet + form -> input expenses to form (ideally, at the time incurred, with category and optional note and optional month override) and they show up in the sheet in the correct month-category.

It has been handy outside of evaluating spending, "hey did we pay X/for X?" can be answered with data therein.

[Freedomin5]

We don’t budget. We have a monthly savings goal, and the money is automatically taken out of our account on payday. We spend whatever is left in the account. If there’s extra at the end of the month, that gets swept into our investment account as well.

[Chris Pascale]

We did a budget this month for the first time, and will probably do one through next year.

[PhilB]

Detailed budgets are great if you need to control / change your spending.  Once you're past that point though, I think just tracking total spend is all you need. 

My spreadsheet has only two spending categories - 'credit card' and 'other'.  I pay the cards in full each month and that's the number that goes in.  Everything else is just totaled from the bank statements.  Cash counts as spent when I withdraw it.  I add a comment for future reference if the total monthly spend is unusually high.  Simples.

[Shane]

I imagine at some point we'll stop tracking due to future complexity - we plan to eventually do a lot of long term travel, which will involve a lot of foreign currency and cash transactions. I would still keep track of the total spending amount, since that's simple enough to do.

I wouldn't say I find tracking particularly useful or valuable now, but it's just plain interesting to see long term data. It's really low effort for me since I've got Mint set up really well, so it's not like I'm manually entering stuff.

FYI, AndroMoney allows you to easily switch between currencies. Cash transactions will, of course, need to be entered manually. So, if you want to keep tracking your spending while long term traveling, it's not that hard to do.

[Ron Scott]

We track expenses on a fairly loose basis—or I should say, my wife does—by looking at credit card bills, etc. Once a year I’ll figure out what we spent in the past 12 months and I can do that 99% with 2 credit cards, 1 checking account and Vanguard transfers (mostly gifting).

Like many of you we have no budget. I think budgeting encourages people to overspend.

[Dicey]

Early in my FIRE journey, before the term existed, I used to track fairly seriously, occasionally obsessively when I did my annual No Spend February, before those were a Thing. Post-FIRE, my frugal habits are pretty ingrained and DH is a man of few wants. Now that we're solidly FI, we only check account balances. About once a quarter, I scan Zillow and Redfin and tally property values,, which is pure entertainment.

DH is about to retire, finally. His pension and my SS will cover our current spending. We anticipate large rental income increases as our elderly tenants turn over, plus an unexpectedly generous inheritance, so we'll be more than fine. No real need to budget or track any more.

Lately, my automatic reply to any of DH's projects is, "Spend the money."

I'm offering this response to point out that budgeting and tracking are most effective early in the game. Once you hit your numbers, it almost becomes a moot point, which is pretty glorious and makes the early effort very worthwhile.

[ixtap]

The only spending that doesn't go through checking is what the HSA pays for. So I just track total spending, looking only close enough to see why one month is much higher than usual.

[jinga nation]

Yes, we had a budget. But had been trained for the money saving and investing basics by my family when I was a teen (and so was my wife, learning from her parents).

We made a budget when we got married, since I was working full-time and wife was part-time with a grad school assistant-ship then a part-time job. Later realized we overestimated spending numbers since we don't eat out much (1x week not high-end), drink alcohol very little/none, and don't have impulsive purchases. We used Mint for a few years when it was free (before Intuit purchased it) and noticed we were saving more than expected. But then stopped budgeting when realized that kids weren't as expensive as claimed (only spent on the basics and daycare and formula - no impulsive/cute-looking stupid buys). Instead, do much along what @Ron Scott said for tracking.

We've always lived on one salary - mine; wife's is 100% saved for investing (brokerage account, real estate purchases).
Both of us max out retirement accounts. And we only buy/spend what is necessary for the family (food, shelter, clothing, kids sports training). We travel frugal-ish using deals and discounts, and often visit family.

In my experience helping younger co-workers with budgets, I've realized a budget for many is just an excuse to put in a line item for impulsive or short-term gratifying purchases. Many had a $100-300 monthly allotment, for each spouse. But I do admit budgets are a good training tool for those who have never managed their money.

[roomtempmayo]

We don’t budget. We have a monthly savings goal, and the money is automatically taken out of our account on payday. We spend whatever is left in the account. If there’s extra at the end of the month, that gets swept into our investment account as well.

This is basically our approach as well.

By far the biggest financial gains we've seen were by optimizing our lifestyle (housing, food, transportation), and then automating pretty much everything.  It works really well for us.  It's also incredibly boring.  Money is reduced to time.

One false economy I've never been able to kick is the feeling that doing money well should somehow have some busyness or effort associated with it.  The feeling that if it isn't a little bit tough, can I be doing it right?  I suspect budgeting scratches that itch for some people. 

I've settled on a month-end account review where I manually enter balances into a spreadsheet and do a little evaluation.  It makes me feel like I'm putting in some effort, even if it's totally unnecessary.

[American GenX]

I had a budget that reflects my spending, not a budget that controls my spending.

I have had to increase the budget numbers significantly in the last year and a half due to soaring inflation.

[BookLoverL]

Whenever I make a budget it's an approximate projection rather than a strict regiment, based on my actual likely spending. I don't really like doing tracking, so I never did it.

My main control mechanism for spending is based on internal lack of motivation to spend - most things I genuinely don't want, and half the things I might want I don't want at the price they're being sold at. Also I've tried to develop the habit of thinking of free or cheap ways to fulfil the same need or want before resorting to buying something.

Budgets and tracking are a great idea for people new to saving, who often might not have even realised how much they're spending on different categories. But you get to a point in your financial thinking where you just don't really need all that to avoid spending or even to calculate roughly how well you're doing.

[mathlete]

I've mostly stopped. Especially since life has been so chaotic over the past few years. The amount of saving we do simply on autopilot is more than enough to retire 20-25 years before social security.

It's possible that taking a closer look could lead us to save a little bit more. And that little bit could shave a year off of our FIRE estimate. But in reality, when you're talking about retiring early (late 30s, early 40s), the impact of small marginal increases to savings are subject to being eaten up by short term market volatility anyway.

In a decade, I'll be 42. If the market returns 8% a year, I'll be in a very good position to stop/reduce working or change jobs or whatever. But in my life, I've already seen the market have 0% returns over a 10 year period, and another 5 year period of 0% as well. In that sense, reducing spending and increasing savings by a percentage or two doesn't seem like a high value effort at this point.

[stoaX]

I have rigorously tracked, and will continue to track spending.  I like to do it and find it interesting. But if I gave it up today I don't think I would be financially worse off in the future.  So if you don't like it, don't do it.

[Zikoris]

I imagine at some point we'll stop tracking due to future complexity - we plan to eventually do a lot of long term travel, which will involve a lot of foreign currency and cash transactions. I would still keep track of the total spending amount, since that's simple enough to do.

I wouldn't say I find tracking particularly useful or valuable now, but it's just plain interesting to see long term data. It's really low effort for me since I've got Mint set up really well, so it's not like I'm manually entering stuff.

FYI, AndroMoney allows you to easily switch between currencies. Cash transactions will, of course, need to be entered manually. So, if you want to keep tracking your spending while long term traveling, it's not that hard to do.

My transactions would pretty much all be cash, so it's really just not feasible without spending a lot of time fucking around. I'd be satisfied with having the monthly total for cash spending, in addition to things that would be on credit card, like flights or some accomodations.

[trollwithamustache]

no real budget per say. The regular expenses and regular savings (if I'm working enough for that) come first. Then we either save more or save for whatever major purchases are on the list.  So really our budgets is a short list of major purchases and the travel slush fund, which COVID has severely limited our ability to spend down. 

[nereo]

I had a budget that reflects my spending, not a budget that controls my spending.

I have had to increase the budget numbers significantly in the last year and a half due to soaring inflation.

That’s interesting. Spouse and I were discussing the other day how little this round of inflation has impacted our monthly spend, and how our Covid lives have boosted our savings rate (e.g. our ‘going out’ budget remains at an historical low for us). Besides a slight uptick in our groceries category (~$40+/mo) most everything else is flat. Our mortgage payment has actually decreased when we locked in a ridiculously low rate.

[Freedomin5]

We don’t budget. We have a monthly savings goal, and the money is automatically taken out of our account on payday. We spend whatever is left in the account. If there’s extra at the end of the month, that gets swept into our investment account as well.

This is basically our approach as well.

By far the biggest financial gains we've seen were by optimizing our lifestyle (housing, food, transportation), and then automating pretty much everything.  It works really well for us.  It's also incredibly boring.  Money is reduced to time.

One false economy I've never been able to kick is the feeling that doing money well should somehow have some busyness or effort associated with it.  The feeling that if it isn't a little bit tough, can I be doing it right?  I suspect budgeting scratches that itch for some people. 

I've settled on a month-end account review where I manually enter balances into a spreadsheet and do a little evaluation.  It makes me feel like I'm putting in some effort, even if it's totally unnecessary.

Same. We focused on increasing income and optimizing the largest expenses (housing, food, transportation, private school tuition). We don’t stress so much about little expenses. We also have an incredibly boring system, but it works. I track our finances daily by logging into our investment account and updating a net worth app. Is it totally unnecessary? Yes. Does it make me feel like I’m “working towards FIRE”? Also yes.

[ixtap]

[
I've settled on a month-end account review where I manually enter balances into a spreadsheet and do a little evaluation.  It makes me feel like I'm putting in some effort, even if it's totally unnecessary.

We also have an incredibly boring system, but it works. I track our finances daily by logging into our investment account and updating a net worth app. Is it totally unnecessary? Yes. Does it make me feel like I’m “working towards FIRE”? Also yes.
[/quote]

I just obsessively post and read here and at bogleheads.

[JoJo]

I didn't track for the last 15 years when working.  But now that I'm 7 months into retirement, I'm loosely tracking which isn't more than putting my monthly credit card amount and a rare atm withdrawal into a spreadsheet.   7 months in, more than 11K under budget so far, basically because I'm not doing the extensive travel I had hoped to do in retirement. 

[American GenX]

I had a budget that reflects my spending, not a budget that controls my spending.

I have had to increase the budget numbers significantly in the last year and a half due to soaring inflation.

That’s interesting. Spouse and I were discussing the other day how little this round of inflation has impacted our monthly spend, and how our Covid lives have boosted our savings rate (e.g. our ‘going out’ budget remains at an historical low for us). Besides a slight uptick in our groceries category (~$40+/mo) most everything else is flat. Our mortgage payment has actually decreased when we locked in a ridiculously low rate.

I have no mortgage or any debt, but I've seen increases with about everything.  Homeowner's insurance 12%, natural gas ~30%, groceries, gasoline, oil changes, health insurance, internet service, repair parts, and more.  I've stepped up my sinking funds for home maintenance (some costs are more than double over the last year or two) and future car/maintenance.  I live in a high property tax state and am expecting a big increase in this year's taxes, but I won't know until the bill comes.  They are rumored to be going up a lot.  I live pretty frugally with little discretionary spending, so it's difficult to cut back much when you're already living pretty lean.

[ChickenStash]

I did a fair bit of budgeting/tracking when I first started my MMM journey trying to identify my particular inefficiencies so I could deal with them in some way. Once that was done I set myself a spending cap, of sorts, by setting up auto investments to pull out the extra from my pay check.

As long as the whole doesn't exceed the cap I don't pay much attention to it. I do compare statements when the big stuff like insurance or taxes are due to see if something needs to be changed, though. The rest of my spending is fairly consistent.

[Cassie]

I have a budget but now that’s it’s just me really easy to stay on top of my spending. I am not spending more on groceries but my vet dental cleanings have doubled in price and my implant supported denture doubled from 340 to 740 which needs to be done yearly.

[partgypsy]

Thanks for the different perspectives. I do feel me seeing where I spend is useful, though less useful than it used to be. I do have a couple larger new expenses (child starting college, and a house remodel) and so I want to track those. I might just track ingo, outfit, savings for the 4 months I missed, get back on the horse next year. The area I struggle in is "miscellaneous" spending, basically random spending oli do that doesn't fit into my other categories (recurring, charity, groc, restaurant, travel/entertainment, car, medical and vet, house, miscellaneous, and recently added, child

[gooki]

I've given up on tracking expenses.

I loosely track my income and investments only. If my investment ratio drops I know my expenses have gone out of whack and need attention.

[Bee21]

Stopped budgeting and tracking last year but I am planning to pick it up again for at least 6 month.

We were in a new house ($$$$), got a new car, husband got a new job with a different pay cycle....it just got too hard. Most of our expenses/ savings are on autopilot, so there were no dramas. I have a lot of respect for people who can account for every cent they spend, but it is not for me. Forecasting and having a spending plan was a better fit for my personality. I will never know how much we spend on sweet potatoes per year, but it is not necessarily a bad thing.

[Queen Frugal]

I use YNAB religiously for tracking spending and budgeting. I have variable income (self employed) so having a budget is helpful to me.  The biggest benefit for me is that I know and understand how much I have to invest.  For years I was afraid to invest in retirement accounts in case I needed the money.  By budgeting, I prove to myself what I have to put away for the future.  Budgeting also helps keep my spending in line with my goals.  It also helps me understand what I need in retirement.   

[NotJen]

I'm probably a tracker for life.  I started when I first had income and expenses to track, and haven't stopped yet.  I honestly would have no idea what I spent if I didn't, and I love looking at the data.  Tracking is easy (for me) - I use Microsoft Money to keep a "checkbook register" for my accounts and reconcile with each monthly statement - since I'm already entering the amounts, assigning a category takes almost no extra work.

I never budgeted until I FIREd, and I do it now to make sure that the annual totals in my mind lead to reasonable expenses, and it gives me a benchmark to check-in with myself throughout the year.  During my accumulation phase, I checked-in with my savings goals, but I don't have those now.

I can see myself dropping the "budget" in the future, but I'll probably always track.

[MoneyTree]

I’ve tracked for a long time using personal capital, but I don’t think it’s all that useful anymore except to verify our annual spending fits within our FIRE plans.

In the early accumulation phase it was helpful to track so that I could find ways to slash expenses, and accelerate our time to FIRE. But now, the portfolio gains so much and our income so far exceeds our spending that it seems silly to track things. Any changes to our spending has such a minuscule impact on the growing trajectory of our stash. It’s like worrying about a speed bump slowing down an avalanche.

[Maverick1]

I budget/plan my savings.  I don't budget for personal expenditures, although I'm fairly frugal by nature.

[Ron Scott]

I had a budget that reflects my spending, not a budget that controls my spending.

I have had to increase the budget numbers significantly in the last year and a half due to soaring inflation.

That’s interesting. Spouse and I were discussing the other day how little this round of inflation has impacted our monthly spend, and how our Covid lives have boosted our savings rate (e.g. our ‘going out’ budget remains at an historical low for us). Besides a slight uptick in our groceries category (~$40+/mo) most everything else is flat. Our mortgage payment has actually decreased when we locked in a ridiculously low rate.

I have no mortgage or any debt, but I've seen increases with about everything.  Homeowner's insurance 12%, natural gas ~30%, groceries, gasoline, oil changes, health insurance, internet service, repair parts, and more.  I've stepped up my sinking funds for home maintenance (some costs are more than double over the last year or two) and future car/maintenance.  I live in a high property tax state and am expecting a big increase in this year's taxes, but I won't know until the bill comes.  They are rumored to be going up a lot.  I live pretty frugally with little discretionary spending, so it's difficult to cut back much when you're already living pretty lean.

Our annual spend is break-even YoY, but I am certainly envious of those who have not been impacted on at least a line item basis by inflation. Housing, food, transportation, healthcare and more are up for me. Travel is 10% of plan and we eat our much less often so…

[K_in_the_kitchen]

I had a budget that reflects my spending, not a budget that controls my spending.

I have had to increase the budget numbers significantly in the last year and a half due to soaring inflation.

That’s interesting. Spouse and I were discussing the other day how little this round of inflation has impacted our monthly spend, and how our Covid lives have boosted our savings rate (e.g. our ‘going out’ budget remains at an historical low for us). Besides a slight uptick in our groceries category (~$40+/mo) most everything else is flat. Our mortgage payment has actually decreased when we locked in a ridiculously low rate.

I have no mortgage or any debt, but I've seen increases with about everything.  Homeowner's insurance 12%, natural gas ~30%, groceries, gasoline, oil changes, health insurance, internet service, repair parts, and more.  I've stepped up my sinking funds for home maintenance (some costs are more than double over the last year or two) and future car/maintenance.  I live in a high property tax state and am expecting a big increase in this year's taxes, but I won't know until the bill comes.  They are rumored to be going up a lot.  I live pretty frugally with little discretionary spending, so it's difficult to cut back much when you're already living pretty lean.

Our annual spend is break-even YoY, but I am certainly envious of those who have not been impacted on at least a line item basis by inflation. Housing, food, transportation, healthcare and more are up for me. Travel is 10% of plan and we eat our much less often so…

It's been quite year for us with sending two children to university, but overall I don't think we've been highly impacted by inflation.  Part of that is having a paid off house, as our main expenses are property taxes and insurance.  As for transportation, when gas prices go sky high we drive less.  We can do this since we've lived within walking/biking distance of DH's employer for 28 years, so all driving is either errands or fun.  Food is up, but we don't buy packaged convenience type foods, so again, there's less of an impact.  When meat prices rise, we eat less meat.  We still have employer health insurance.  The burrito place hasn't raised their prices in a few years, although the daily special of two items plus a drink costs $6.59 now, versus the $2.99 it was in 1992.  As for travel, we mostly camp.  Our favorite campground is now $60 for a beachfront site versus $45 20 years ago.

I live in a HCOL area, and my region was number 2 in the USA for inflation as of the most recent December CPI numbers.  But we have arranged our lives to avoid a lot of it.

[MoneyGoatee]

I've been tracking my expenses for decades and never stopped.  Tracking is most needed for expenses with lots of line items and ranging wildly in amounts (e.g. $10 movie ticket, $500 TV, etc.).  For many fixed, periodical expenses that don't vary much, such as groceries, commuting fares, etc., I spend less effort in tracking.  We know the old saying: you look only at the trees and forget the forest.  But sometimes you do have to pay attention to the trees, because certain small and sneaky line items, as I said, are unpredictable in amounts and may even be forgettable.  E.g. when you look at your monthly CC bill, you see a $100 purchase that you "forgot" you had. 

[stoaX]

I had a budget that reflects my spending, not a budget that controls my spending.

I have had to increase the budget numbers significantly in the last year and a half due to soaring inflation.

That’s interesting. Spouse and I were discussing the other day how little this round of inflation has impacted our monthly spend, and how our Covid lives have boosted our savings rate (e.g. our ‘going out’ budget remains at an historical low for us). Besides a slight uptick in our groceries category (~$40+/mo) most everything else is flat. Our mortgage payment has actually decreased when we locked in a ridiculously low rate.

I have no mortgage or any debt, but I've seen increases with about everything.  Homeowner's insurance 12%, natural gas ~30%, groceries, gasoline, oil changes, health insurance, internet service, repair parts, and more.  I've stepped up my sinking funds for home maintenance (some costs are more than double over the last year or two) and future car/maintenance.  I live in a high property tax state and am expecting a big increase in this year's taxes, but I won't know until the bill comes.  They are rumored to be going up a lot.  I live pretty frugally with little discretionary spending, so it's difficult to cut back much when you're already living pretty lean.

Our annual spend is break-even YoY, but I am certainly envious of those who have not been impacted on at least a line item basis by inflation. Housing, food, transportation, healthcare and more are up for me. Travel is 10% of plan and we eat our much less often so…

It's been quite year for us with sending two children to university, but overall I don't think we've been highly impacted by inflation.  Part of that is having a paid off house, as our main expenses are property taxes and insurance.  As for transportation, when gas prices go sky high we drive less.  We can do this since we've lived within walking/biking distance of DH's employer for 28 years, so all driving is either errands or fun.  Food is up, but we don't buy packaged convenience type foods, so again, there's less of an impact.  When meat prices rise, we eat less meat.  We still have employer health insurance.  The burrito place hasn't raised their prices in a few years, although the daily special of two items plus a drink costs $6.59 now, versus the $2.99 it was in 1992.  As for travel, we mostly camp.  Our favorite campground is now $60 for a beachfront site versus $45 20 years ago.

I live in a HCOL area, and my region was number 2 in the USA for inflation as of the most recent December CPI numbers.  But we have arranged our lives to avoid a lot of it.

The value of my house increased substantially over the last year or so. That has caused about a $600 / 26% jump in my property taxes.  My healthcare premiums are going up substantially for 2022 even after ACA subsidies. 

As others have mentioned, i can adjust my spending to mitigate increases in other things.

[OurTown]

I have stopped but I am starting again in January. I am, fate willing, 2.25 years away from FIRE, and I really want to stick the landing.

[American GenX]

I had a budget that reflects my spending, not a budget that controls my spending.

I have had to increase the budget numbers significantly in the last year and a half due to soaring inflation.

That’s interesting. Spouse and I were discussing the other day how little this round of inflation has impacted our monthly spend, and how our Covid lives have boosted our savings rate (e.g. our ‘going out’ budget remains at an historical low for us). Besides a slight uptick in our groceries category (~$40+/mo) most everything else is flat. Our mortgage payment has actually decreased when we locked in a ridiculously low rate.

I have no mortgage or any debt, but I've seen increases with about everything.  Homeowner's insurance 12%, natural gas ~30%, groceries, gasoline, oil changes, health insurance, internet service, repair parts, and more.  I've stepped up my sinking funds for home maintenance (some costs are more than double over the last year or two) and future car/maintenance.  I live in a high property tax state and am expecting a big increase in this year's taxes, but I won't know until the bill comes.  They are rumored to be going up a lot.  I live pretty frugally with little discretionary spending, so it's difficult to cut back much when you're already living pretty lean.

Our annual spend is break-even YoY, but I am certainly envious of those who have not been impacted on at least a line item basis by inflation. Housing, food, transportation, healthcare and more are up for me. Travel is 10% of plan and we eat our much less often so…

It's been quite year for us with sending two children to university, but overall I don't think we've been highly impacted by inflation.  Part of that is having a paid off house, as our main expenses are property taxes and insurance.  As for transportation, when gas prices go sky high we drive less.  We can do this since we've lived within walking/biking distance of DH's employer for 28 years, so all driving is either errands or fun.  Food is up, but we don't buy packaged convenience type foods, so again, there's less of an impact.  When meat prices rise, we eat less meat.  We still have employer health insurance.  The burrito place hasn't raised their prices in a few years, although the daily special of two items plus a drink costs $6.59 now, versus the $2.99 it was in 1992.  As for travel, we mostly camp.  Our favorite campground is now $60 for a beachfront site versus $45 20 years ago.

I live in a HCOL area, and my region was number 2 in the USA for inflation as of the most recent December CPI numbers.  But we have arranged our lives to avoid a lot of it.

The value of my house increased substantially over the last year or so. That has caused about a $600 / 26% jump in my property taxes.  My healthcare premiums are going up substantially for 2022 even after ACA subsidies. 

As others have mentioned, i can adjust my spending to mitigate increases in other things.

I'm really seeing prices up across the board, and forecasts are for similar levels of inflation to continue in 2022.  I just saw a news story about businesses that were holding off on price increases until after the new years, so that's when a lot of new price hikes are going to hit.  I'm a decade off from Medicare, but part B premiums will be up 14.5% in 2022.  And those continue to go up every year.  I figure those things into my long range budget.  I'm leaning more towards OMY due to such high inflation when I had been almost certain of a spring 2022 FIRE.

I pretty much cut steak from my diet a few years ago and even have reduced my meal portions over the last couple years - not much room to cut back as I'm living pretty lean with little discretionary spending and a high saving rate.

[BlueHouse]

I've been using Quicken to track savings and expenditures for decades, but I've never mastered budgeting.  The parts that are key for me:
- automatic DAILY downloads from all credit card accounts
- automatic DAILY downloads from all bank accounts
- automatic DAILY downloads from all investment accounts

I honestly cannot remember where I spend all my money if I wait a month or even a week.  Even when I download transactions daily, I sometimes think "Did I go to Trader Joe's today?"  So it helps a lot with fraud prevention and making sure I am conscious of spending.

I also don't always keep up to date with financial news.  One day last year my net worth jumped up by 100K overnight.  Turns out that TSLA stock split, and I had no idea that was coming!  Of course, it went back down the next day when the price caught up with my holdings, but it was a good exercise for me. 

Quicken has also greatly improved their reports over the past 5 years, and they now have crosstab reports that can show categories by month, which is practically a budget...just after the fact. 

So basically, I just push a button every day or every few days, review all new transactions, then I'm done for the day and comfortable that i'm on top of my spending, my financial security, and my future goals.