Confession of the Day - I Don't Have a Budget

I know that setting a budget is one of the first things you will read about when it comes to gaining control of your finances.  I have never done this though. However, I do track every single penny we spend.  I've been doing this for almost 8 years now.  I can go back to any month and know how much we spent on monthly bills, gas & groceries.  Over time I've added categories to my very simple spreadsheet to include the following:
  1. Monthly Bills (Energy, Utilities, Cell Phone, Mortgage, dues,etc. all go here)
  2. Gas
  3. Groceries
  4. Entertainment (all dining out, event tickets, vacation expenses go here)
  5. Misc (this category is very broad for us and could be narrowed down some more but any spending on clothes, gifts, Target trips, donations, etc. all get tracked here)
  6. I have a column for each of my children to track their individual daycare exprenses, preschool tuition, clothes, toys and books that can easily be distributed)
  7. The last column tracks our net pay so we can easily determine how much we are spending every month on everything vs. how much we are seeing from our paychecks
This system has worked well for us and I can easily compare from month to month when we have spending changes or where are big expenses were. 

Do you have a budget?  Do you have a way to track your spending?

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