I have the same problem. The people above are right to an extent. You have to be more disciplined. But there is no reason why you can't get there in stages. If you try to do too much too fast you'll just give up. You need to find a system that removes some of the passive barriers affecting you. You need to think what in particular is overwhelming you. For me it was sitting down at the end of the month to write it all down. Writing it all down at the end of the week or even each day didn't work either because it was too much and I had forgotten what stuff was. I'm like you. The bank account is a record so why do I have to retype it or worse, hand write it out? Bleh.
What I ended up doing was divide my expenses into four categories: food (to include all medical) shelter, transportation, spending -- with the first three being needs and the last being wants. Eating out is spending.
I have four checking accounts with four debit cards. I saved up some money. I put a paycheck's worth of money in each because I didn't know how much I spent each month in each category, but knew I didn't spend an entire paycheck in any one category per month. Voila. No more work. At the store you just put things in the basket by category. At Target you pay for the food and toothpaste with the medical card and the DVD with the spending card. The cashiers don't care that you pay separately. And if you are buying so much crap that separating items by category is a problem, why the heck are you buying so much crap?
At the end of the month you will now have a record of how much you spend on transportation, housing (electricity would be paid online from this account for example), medical and fun. That's all anyone needs to help you get started. You can then see if your housing is 35% or less (or whatever percentage you feel is right). The person trying to help the author above is right. A Target charge doesn't indicate whether you bought some oil for the car or cold medicine or a lock for the cabinet door that broke. But when you pay for each of these things under the right account, you do know how the money is allocated.
Doing it this way requires little discipline. Before you put the item in the basket, you just ask yourself, is this a want or a need (which is something you should be doing anyway). If it's a need, is it for my car, house, or body. The house is what I use if I can't figure it out (like paying for the renewal of my professional license). That's it! You have to stand at the register for longer but so what.
If you are spending all your salary and you stop when you have no more money (assuming you've run through all of your savings, which you will soon if you don't change), then you have no more money to spend. So if you are honest when you put things in the basket(need vs want), you are going to run out of spending money real quick. Your spending money account will be empty but you will still have food money. Set your debit card up so that it denies your charge if you don't have enough money.
Once you realize how much you truly spend for needs in each category, you will only put that much in each account. Therefore, You can't use the house card to just "borrow" from it till next month. If you do, you won't be able to pay your bills. If you have so little discipline that you knowingly spend your bill money, then there is a deeper issue going on than just finding the right budgeting/cash flow system for you. Something is seriously wrong and you need to seek professional help.
When someone is trying to help you, the first step is to determine what category you are spending too much in. Then when you realize it's the house category, for example, you will need to figure out why you are spending so much in that category. A bank statement wont tell you that. So you can do what we did. On every receipt --before you walk out of the store-- write down what each purchase is on the receipt. Then you can hand over the receipts to whoever is helping you. Most items are easily recognizable on the receipt so you wont have to write everything down. You should be doing this for insurance purposes anyway.
Again, if your receipt is so blooming long that this is onerous, probably everything you just spent is not a need and maybe you need to turn right around and return stuff. Maybe you need to go to the store more often so there are only a few purchases on each receipt. Groceries are groceries. You don't need to detail that out. For IKEA when you have to purchase pieces to a set, we get a separate receipts for each. So the brackets and shelving for the bedroom will be on one receipt and the brackets and shelving for the other room will be on another receipt. Even at the store I can't figure out what all the little pieces are!
But really, if you are making a decent enough salary, then you are probably spending too much on wants and are calling the items needs. So really your problem is correctly identifying needs from wants. Define a NEED. YOU. Make up your own definition of need Dwell on it. Let it become meaningful for you. Oranges are a need. Chocolate is not (no, really it's not! LOL!). So when you are putting the stuff in the basket, you don't even have to think about whether it's a need or not after a while.
Wants go in the child seat if at all possible (to keep the number of items smaller).
When you are ready to check out, add up the items roughly in the want pile. Ask yourself if you really want all that stuff. Then put some stuff back! At this point ask yourself is the 8 hours I will have to work to pay for this worth it? Am I really going to use it? Will using the item make me happy? Or is it the actual buying of the item that makes me feel powerful? Where will I put it? How much time will I need to maintain it? Then put some stuff back! Get some good goals, a kayaking trip or whatever. Ask yourself if the item is worth delaying the trip. How will I feel later? Will I have buyers remorse? If so, put it back!
These are controls you can put into place that don't take a lot of discipline. Writing the items down on the receipt is a more advanced step you can take later.
If you are with friends, go first so that you can write down the items while they are checking out. If you are private and don't want to share your method with your friends, go to the bathroom and in the stall write it down while they wait. Writing the items on the receipt while in the store is sort of a trigger mechanism for remembering to do so. That pulling out of the card triggers your memory to get out your pen or ask the cashier for one.
The side benefit is catching someone using a cloned copy of your card. In the medical account if you see an Exxon charge, you know it's not yours. Also, while that one account is shut down, you have three others to rely on in the meantime.
My spouse hated fumbling for the right card. They all look the same. Color code your cards. We have blue cross blue shield so it feels natural to have the food/medical account with a blue sticker (just buy a little circle sticker and place it on the edge so half is on the front and half is on the back -- nowhere near the strip). I've never been given a hard time about it. Our car is red so the car card is red, etc. If you think four cards is a lot to carry, ask yourself if you would rather carry four cards or keep track of every little thing?
Good luck. I know you will find a system that works for you if you keep trying.
