Practice Makes Permanent

For the last three months, I haven't been keeping up with our budget every day like usual.  I got enamoured with this blog and started blowing off all the little, detail-oriented tasks I used to do like updating out budget every day or two.  In fact, I've simply been entering all of our numbers at the end of our monthly budgeting cycle and looking at the results.  So far, so good. 

It seems that practice makes permanent.

We used to look at our food budget at least once a week so we'd know if we needed to cut back the following week.  Now it seems we have found our happy spot without needing to keep an eye on it all the time.  We have successfully stayed within our food budget three months in a row without having a "come to Jesus" moment halfway through.  I am so proud.

Even though large, unexpected expenses like vet bills, car problems, and dental work keep popping up, we are doing fine.  Our many excess accounts are taking the slack as expected and we're still staying on track.  I'm hoping that a few unexciting months will help us build up more padding again, but all in all, we're feeling pretty good about our situation.

I think this may be a permanent change to our budgeting habits.  I'll still enter all the numbers once a month.  I'll still make sure we're not going hog wild in any specific area.  I'll also make sure we keep hitting our savings goals without fail.  BUT, we seem to have reached the point that we no longer need constant monitoring in order to pull all of that off.  WOOT!

How are your budgeting situations working out?  Do you have a written budget?  If so, is it updated weekly, monthly, or annually?  If not, what works for you?