I find our money leaks away in little drips - $5 here, $7 there, drip, drip, drip. Just popping into the shop for extra milk, getting a round of ice-creams etc seems to stack up.

What we did to analyse the budget was to draw out in actual cash the budgeted amount for a week of spending money, petrol and food and see how it lasted. It turned out we were making internet purchases that were not being counted in any budget and then we were coming up short at the end of the month (paid monthly). The other thing was hitting the supermarket mid-week for one or two things and spending an extra $50.

My only tip (because we struggle with this) is to have cash in hand. It is too easy to swipe everything away on EFTPOS but seeing the actual cash seems to make spending more real and makes the budget very clear - when the money jar is getting low you are running out of cash!