If you are like most people, you get an account manager like Quicken and keep track of all of your accounts. If you do it right, you enter every purchase, every payment and every transfer. Then you realize that you are spending just as much as before. Just knowing where you spent your money yesterday doesn't help you limit your spending today.
The problem is that you are using the wrong tool for the job. You need a budget planner. You need something that allows you to set limits in certain categories and that will track those expenses in real time. If you had a tool like that, you could tell at a glance how much money you can still spend on nice lunches before you need to start brown-bagging it. You could tell if you can afford to go see that new movie or if you should stay home and watch one of those DVD's that you bought but have never gotten around to watching.
The tool you need is Quik Budget.
Quik Budget is a very user-friendly tool that allows you to set up a different virtual wallet for each category you want to track. You decide how much money you want to put into each wallet and how often. Quik Budget starts with the most common wallets that people want. You can use those or create your own. If you want to limit yourself to spending $50 a month on Lord of the Rings action figures, you can set up a wallet for that. If you are on a tight budget and need to watch every penny, you will probably want basic wallets like dining, groceries, gas, etc.
Quik Budget Support page
Quik Budget Download page
Quik Budget text-only manual
Why did I write Quik Budget?
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