Thank-you Vampyre - sorry if I got stroppy.
I think budgeting has become more and more complex, as our lives have become fuller - there are so many more things to take into account than there used to be. I will be absolutely honest, and say that our family budget baffles me - different DDs and SOs going out on different dates, irregular items (such as the service and MOT for the cars) that need to be budgeted in etc etc.
But dh is really good with numbers, and has a budget, and a plan (and a huge spreadsheet) that keeps track of it all - he knows which fixed outgoings are going to go out within each 4-week period (he's paid 4-weekly, which adds an extra layer of complexity), and once those have been factored in, he divides up what's left between the various budgets (petrol, food, allowances, family fun, school dinners, clothing and money to savings (saving up so ds1 and ds2, who are at university, can carry on having the little luxuries they have become accustomed to - like eating and living indoors), and spending is recorded against those.
My friend's dad used to get paid in cash, and every week, he divided up his pay into a set of envelopes, marked for the different things that needed paying and some to the savings, with a bit put aside for emergencies.
I genuinely think this is a skill that needs to be taught - I know that many, many people teach themselves how to budget, and have no problems at all, but some won't - isn't it better that everyone is taught the basics in school? I wish I had been taught budgeting - looking back, the best that I can say is that I muddled through. There were plenty of times where there was too much month left at the end of the money - and too much term left at the end of the money, when I was at University as a mature student - but I never got to the stage of taking out loans to cover the essentials - but that was partly pure luck, and partly dh (then d-fiance) bailing me out - but I never had any sort of budget, and I look back at that with horror at how incompetent I was.