We have a budget, you might say. Hubby gets paid twice a month, and I get pay day once a month (generally around the 28th/29th) He gets paid 15 and 30th from one job, and every other Friday from his other job. We allocate what our "checks" cover. My check covers the majority of the bills (Water, gas, electric, phone, cable, DirectTV, Netflix and Groceries). His checks cover water and rent- (because they require cash or money order), and his check also covers our cleaning lady
When one of our checks comes in, we budget that check. It is written out, okay "What needs to come out of this check?"
We set aside that money (as an example, we set aside 2 weeks pay for our housekeeper), we get the cash for water/rent if needed etc. Once the essential stuff comes out , we decide if there is anything non essential we need. Things like, new towels etc would fall under this category. Then we each get our allowance, and the rest goes in savings.
We are currently working on Dave Ramsey's "7 Baby Steps" and the first is to save up $1000 for emergencies, and we are adding $1000 for pet emergencies, hoping we will never need it. Routine vet visits, shots, and so forth come out of our regular checks- not savings. The cat emergency savings is for things like, emergency vet visits (our ER Vet charges $200 a visit!) , emergency surgeries, etc.
I also tend to get 4 large disbursements a year, leftover from school money (grants & loans). This is when we plan huge purchases like a new car, or a new mattress if needed. Coming up end of Feb the big expenses are a new car( obviously the wreck got rid of ours ) and we need a new mattress. We also if we have enough, plan to purchase tickets to visit his family in the UK. The refund comes end of Oct, Nov, Feb and March.If I take summer classes, it also comes end of July
Clothing tends to be budgeted twice a year in the Spring and Fall school money I get refunded (or tax return). And of course we always try to get baby girl SOMETHING when we have a little extra in LOL. Last time was a 7 foot cat condo..........