I’ve never been able to budget in the literal sense due to how utterly unpredictable my income is (artist sole proprietor kind of thing- don’t do it, kids!), and how wildly the structure of my months vary…but getting wise to tracking all incoming and outgoing transactions on my own spreadsheet has brought such peace of mind.
It came naturally after dealing with self employment income records, so it’s frankly silly that I never applied the same ideas to my personal finances.