When I'm following our budget, I try to pretty much eliminate the misc column altogether, because like you, I just spend it.
When we are on our strict budget, we allot for eating out, then above that we each pocket $20 for whatever. That covers the small impulse buys.
We aren't currently following it (we really need to get back to it), but the envelope/cash system works awesome for us. We used our money best when following a nearly cash-only system. It is a lot easier to commit to no extra spending when you see exactly what is left in each envelope.
I also set a goal to have money left beyond the budget each month. On payday, whatever is left above our buffer (we leave a "ghost" amount in our checking to make sure we never overdraft), I send right to a credit card before I even get that months statement- then make a regular payment with the statement. That tempts my competitive side to see how much I can pay down each month.
I'm writing this from the perspective of someone in debt, so our "extra" goes there when we can. We didn't sit down and realize how bad our debt was until we were pregnant with Koda. We will be debt free except 2 school loans in the next 24 months on the long side.
Our budget has flown out the window and we haven't re-vamped it. I mean, the amount we did have budgeted for gas is ridiculous now that Bill commutes-he charges about $300 in gas per month anymore. So at this point, we don't even have a misc. We just are flying around here willy nilly, and we need to get that under control.
But whatever we don't spend goes into our savings account-I just transfer it online from checking to savings. We have retirement accounts, but we are working on building back our savings in the bank (we do get a nominal amount of interest there-as well as interest on our checking account) for house things and our emergency fund.
We never put much into a misc category though. When our budget was up to date and we were using it, we budgeted for everything-including eating out, alcohol, gifts for other and our family, clothes, entertainment, everything. We would leave a little as a just in case, but anything that wasn't spent on the budgeted items was put into savings.
We need to make re-vamping our budget a priority. I mean, IDT we even realize how much is going out every month on things like water, electric, phone/internet/cable, etc, kwim? Everything is so much more than it used to be.
It depends on the month. Those months we don't have any extra expenses like insurance, birthdays, taxes, etc., we usually have around $1000 extra. Sometimes I put that in savings, other times I save it for an expense I know is coming up (like now I'm saving for Christmas, birthdays, spring dance classes, and car insurance which are all coming before February).
