winging it.

I’m really lazy, so I use the jar method (they article calls it cash stuffing or the envelope method). But I use multiple accounts and automated transfers.

Basically: I have one account for personal spending, one for bills, one for insurance, one for groceries, one for vacation money, etc. I get paid regularly, so I have automated transfers move money into the appropriate accounts.

When it comes time to make an expense in the given category (e.g. insurance), I pay it out of the appropriate account.

The benefits

1. I don’t need to think about it after it’s set.

2. If I overspend in a category, it doesn’t reduce cash available in other categories.

3. It’s easy to tell if my budget is wrong: ie, if an account is building up cash, or doesn’t have enough money, it’s time to revisit the budget.

The first item is the most important to me. I’m not consistent enough to manage a spreadsheet.

I follow an unconventional method that I came up with myself: any time I spend money on anything “unnecessary” (so, excluding things like rent, groceries, etc), I put an equal amount into my savings account.

Pros include: This method alleviates my guilt of spending money on myself. It scales, so the more money I make, the more I tend to save. It’s flexible enough that even during the times where I can’t afford to save, I can still stick to it.

At the very basic level, I predict how much money i expect to make in a month. Then subtract all bills and expenses that will definitely occur in the month. The difference is what i have to play with. Most times that extra goes into getting more groceries. Sometimes I can put that extra into my emergency savings which gets drained out more often than i’d like.

Ultimately, the best approach is the one that works best psychologically for you.

As long as you’re quantatively tracking the in/out of your dollars, yoiu’re doing it right.

From there, if your goal is to save money, its about rewiring your brain to gain pleasure from things other than consumption. In my life experience I’ve found the most sustainable way to feel good without spending money is through personal improvement and achievement. Skills, athletics, creativity, doesn’t matter. If you’re regularly getting better at making or doing stuff you’re proud of, you’ll feel good for free or cheap.

Every month, I put some money into a savings account for future apartment, and a fund. I try to buy the essentials and little extra. My income is regular as long as I’m employed…

I always found it easier to basically automate the process as much as possible. “spend” every recurring expenditure and also set aside the most aggressive savings/investments possible using separate bill pay and savings accounts or buckets. Everything is taken out of the main account as soon as your paycheck hits, so it means everything you see on your spending account is a free dollar that you can use for fun or food.

Some people might operate better with a set amount for groceries too, but I personally found that too restrictive.

A good budget is one that you stick to, helps you achieve your goals, and crucially, allows you to enjoy your life to at least some extent. Whatever method works for you, it’s important to give yourself permission to spend some money on fun. However small.

I started with zero-based budgeting via YNAB ages ago when ynab was a local-only app. Over time though I’ve adjusted and focus on tracking my expenses rather than budgeting. I’ve found that for me, budgeting is hard to stick to because I can never predict well enough. Ynab helped back when I used it but even then I always had a “rollover” fund I had to steal from almost arbitrarily to make things balanced.

I do keep a rough spreadsheet budget of my fixed expenses though (rent, internet, phone, electricity, etc) that I use to understand how much of my money is “locked-in” and what is discretionary.

For tracking, I have a spreadsheet I input all my expenses into every month or two that I use to see how Ive been spending my money, and I use that to decide if I’m happy with where I am.

I use the “barefoot investor” method (basically various buckets with percentages). It’s the only method that’s stuck for me.

There’s an app called MoneyStats which does balance forecasting. Forecasting is necessary for me because I need feedback about how my decisions or plans affect the big picture and to be able to see whatever timeframe that I choose

Its the only thing that keeps one foot out of the financial aby$$. I just program in all my recurring and correct any imbalances every few days and review whenever I start losing the plot or just to make sure my model is representative of my reality and how I need to comport to ensure things stay tight

Husband has irregular income. Like you I do a spreadsheet with the dollars all allocated for my income plus what he tells me he expects on average.

Then each month I compare to actual results, and use that information to get a better estimate for the next year.

The black hole is credit card repayment because it was spent on something but goes in as debt repayment but we are working on that.

ETA: also do forecasting bank balance by day in months when things are tight. We do have savings but most of it in retirement accounts.

I don’t really budget. If I notice my credit card amount seems super high, I chill out on spending for a while.

I have most bills automated, everything that can go on a credit card does. I manually pay down the cards unless there’s a good reason not to, like currently I’m getting ~1% interest on one of them so it can carry a balance for a few months. In the past any excess cash would get moved into a brokerage account about once a month but that’s on hold for now because there’s been a lot of big expenses recently and I need to hopefully pile up more cash for another big expense later in the year. I don’t actually track anything very closely beyond looking at the accounts regularly and doing some rough math. I round things as conservatively as possible when doing the rough math so there’s always some leeway built in to my assumptions that err on the side of me spending more than I probably will.

Apparently my method is a mix of those listed in the text.

I’m in a similar situation as OP, some of my income is irregular. So my monthly budget isn’t directly based on the last month income, I use the average of the last six months, relying on a checking account for that. (I keep it with enough money to last me one or two months.)

Then I split that budget into four categories:

• savings - I aim for 25%. Into the saving account it goes.
• monthly fixed expenses - periodic, somewhat predictable, monthly. For example bills, cornmeal and rice, cat food, etc.
• variable expenses - they’re necessities like the above, but there’s some wiggling room. Like, if necessary I don’t mind eating eggs four lunches a week and walking instead of taking a bus, but I’d rather not to. Usually split into four weeks, so I expend it gradually.
• “fluff”*¹ - avoidable expenses that I still want for some reason like “it improves my mood”. Things for my hobbies, going to a restaurant, buying nicer clothes or hardware, etc. Unused fluff gets transferred to my savings account in the following month.

Then here’s how I address some complexities:

• periodic expenses for things that I buy every few months (e.g. gas canisters) - I include a fraction of them into the monthly fixed expenses, and only remove the money from the checking account when buying it
• erratic but large expenses (e.g. house repairs) - I usually “borrow” this money from the savings, then “repay” it in the following months, as a fixed expense*².
• high income multiple months in a row - I cap the budget and send the overflow to the savings.
• low income multiple months in a row - cut down fluff, then reduce variable expenses, then reduce monthly fixed expenses, then reduce savings, in this order.
• really low income multiple months in a row - if really necessary I borrow from the savings, keeping in mind that I’ll need to repay myself.

Notes:

1. The actual name that I give to this category is “imposto das lombrigas”, or roughly “roundworm tax”. That’s from from my family jokingly referring to cravings as "to have roundworms for [something].
2. Some people might use a credit card instead for that, to build credit; that also works, but it depends a lot on the government that you pay taxes to. I do have a credit card but I tend to avoid it, as often there are discounts for paying things in cash.