We've been married 44 yrs. and budget for everything. We consider some type of savings (vacation, special night out, purchase a special item, etc.) as a regular expense. In otherwords, if you can put only $5 per paycheck into some kind of savings (even an envelope or piggy bank is better than nothing), you will have $25 per month if you are paid weekly. In 4 months you'll have $100. You can spend it then or continue saving it for some special that is more costly. If money is very tight and you're living from paycheck to paycheck, you'll never have money saved for anything if you don't consider savings as something you HAVE TO DO each paycheck. We budget monthly for car insurance, property taxes, etc., in otherwards, for things that need to be paid 3,6, or 12 months into the future. When those come due the money is always there - no stress or borrowing from Peter to pay Paul. We also budget monthly for Christmas expenses, vacations, etc. We don't have "play money" because we budget for everything. Things like eating out, going to movies, date nights, etc., are all budgeted for as Entertainment Expense. In order to get started putting money ahead while paying current bills you will have to not spend extra money for anything for at least a month (maybe longer). During that start-up time you put the extra money into budget accounts that you've determined ahead of time what type and how much. In a couple of months you'll have money available for these expenses sitting there readily available. In order to stay on budget you'll need to continue contributing your paycheck into your budget accounts each paycheck. You can open a savings account and keep track of your budget expenses in a notebook, or our bank actually lets us keep as many savings accounts as we want with no charge. We are even able to name the accounts such as Vacation, Property Taxes, etc. When we receive the bank statements we can see how much is in our budget accounts. For bills you pay monthly, you could just open an account that says "Monthly Expenses".
I have a sister who has been married many years who has never budgeted. Their income is similar to ours. They have lots of debt and always ask for an extension on paying income taxes, utility bills, etc. They are hounded by collection agencies. They do not typically "blow" their money. What happens to them is that whenever they have a month with extra income (they're both self-employed so income isn't consistent) they go out to each more often, stay in a motel for the weekend, buy new clothes, give their 4 adult kids extra gas money, etc. While they deserve all of these things, by not budgeting and setting money aside each month for the next months bills or future expenses, in the months where their income is less than normal they can't pay necessary bills such as utilities, phones, gas for their cars, etc. Therefore, they charge those things to their credit cards and those balances keep climbing until they're maxed out. My sister can't understand why our incomes are similar but we have a perfect credit rating, always pay bills on time, take trips, eat out, and don't stress out over Christmas spending. It's because we set that money side each month so that everything gets paid even when paychecks aren't consistent.
