On the Matter of Budgets...

I think most people tend to relax on Saturdays... I, on the other hand, spent most of it figuring out my monthly budget. JET being my first full-time job, I want to make sure that I know how I spend my money and that I limit it where it should be limited, so instead of spending it all little by little on useless things, I can save up for more the important things, like traveling. The good news is that after much calculation I realized I can put 2/3 of my NET salary into savings, which is much more than what I originally thought would be possible. ^_^

Some of the tweaks I did today were:

1) I gave myself a set budget for entertainment like movies and karaoke. I love going to these, so I felt it would be best to separate it from other social events like enkais (drinking parties) that Japanese people tend to have here. This way I won't feel like I'm taking the money away from something else.

2) I put my knitting budget under my personal budget, where I also have categories like clothing and books, because this way I'm hoping I'll be able to limit how much I'll spend on new yarn, especially since I have so many projects to finish up. I also designated the 14th of every month (I get paid on the 16th) to be the day when I go and check out the craft and yarn stores in the city, so I won't spend all my personal budget on yarn right after I get paid, but instead use only whatever got left of it just before my next paycheck comes in.

3) I'm still not sure how to divide up the money that I'll put into savings as soon as I get paid. So far I have an Emergency Fund and a Travel Fund, and I divide my savings up equally between the two. However, I have a couple more ideas/things I'd like to save up for, so I'll have to juggle things a bit more before I'm satisfied.

Overall I'm happy with what I accomplished today. I feel like I'm settling in more and more each day and this is a really good feeling. ^_^

Question: Do you keep any sort of budget? Is it formal (spreadsheet, notebook, etc) or informal (rough estimates in your head)? What do you think about keeping monthly budgets in general?