How to stick to a personal budget without feeling restricted

What people tried

Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.

1. 1
   Setting aside a specific monthly allowance for guilt-free fun money
2. 2
   Tracking every expense and categorizing spending manually or in spreadsheets
3. 3
   Building emergency funds and sinking funds to absorb unexpected costs
4. 4
   Opening a separate checking account dedicated solely to discretionary purchases
5. 5
   budgeting the remaining funds into tighter, designated line-item categories rather than treating it as a catch-all
6. 6
   relying on anticipated future raises, bonuses, overtime, and tax refunds to supplement income
7. 7
   planning to cut back significantly on general spending habits to afford a new mortgage
8. 8
   relying on faux florals for less-important areas
9. 9
   polling married friends and family about what they regretted spending money on
10. 10
    ranking optional expenses from splurge to save to decide what to cut
11. 11
    Manually entering transaction data into self-made spreadsheets
12. 12
    Switching to locally hosted web apps built with Python and Django
13. 13
    Exporting CSV files from banks and loading them into spreadsheets

In their words

Unedited, most upvoted first, each linked to the thread it came from.