I care about Net Worth but I dont budget...
This may sound counter-intuitive, but we don't budget. What we have found is that budgeting can cause needless pain and anxiety. In general, I just pay myself first -- I have set up automatic withdrawals from my checking account into my non-taxable accounts. Once these leave my checking account, they become our automatic savings beyond the 401k's. Then, we just keep spending on normal monthly expenses. I find that it all evens out - some months, grocery bills are high, but that month we don't have travel bills, and vice versa. Of course, this took some time and discipline but I usually get a strange feeling when our expenses are going above our "safe limit" - in those times, I take a quick look at personal capital cash flow statement and we make quick adjustments to our spending. This doesn't work well for 2 cases - a) when home repairs or home appliances/furniture shopping comes around, and 2) travel expenses. For those expenses, I have a separate fun
