Koolau
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
No real budget anymore.... I have a number set (total NW) that I will start watching my spend rate, if I ever reach it. A few years ago, I never thought I'd get to that number in my lifetime, but with inflation really picking up, it's possible.
Heh, heh (he said, sheepishly) we NEVER had a budget. We always planned on and DID spend considerably less than we made, so came out "ahead" at the end of the year. That's carried over into retirement which is why I alluded to not actually saving for "big ticket" items but just writing a check for what we wanted. Additionally, during accumulation we had the "pay yourself first" items like funding the 401(k), etc
While I have only tracked actual spending one time (for a year) I always seem to have a "sense" of where we are and DW keeps the check book pretty well up to date. If we want to BTD, we do check the balance just to be certain. I think once or twice, we've gone back to the 401(k) for "reinforcements" for the check book - following our RMD. We may need to do that this year as we've got a couple of things coming up which are a bit unusual. In any case, this far along - almost 16 years - we're not too concerned about running out of money - black-swan events excepted as always, of course. Just another YMMV possibility.