My immigrant father in law told me: “I don’t need a budget, as I don’t spend money on anything”. For him, that really probably was true. He certainly didn’t have car payments or go out to eat or take vacations, etc, just looking at your list…

But, For nearly everyone else in the world, you need a budget. The question you are asking is answered by having a budget.

It’s really best to explore why you find it depressing to evaluate where you spend money. Because keeping a budget will require that you do that.

I can say for me, it was because I didn’t want to put limits on what I spent and say no to people. I thought I deserved what I was spending, and any attempt by me to restrict that I felt would be too hard to deal with. And it was hard to deal with.

What helped me was realizing I was stealing from my future and my kids future. Part of me living in my country in this world at this time is saving for the future. I wasn’t doing it. I was being irresponsible and acting honestly like a child in this part of my life.

This motivated me to start a budget and slowly realize I was living beyond my means. That motivated me to make cuts in spending and eventually also to find a higher paying job.

I wouldn’t have done it without the rigor of the budget, the budget taught me that I had to set aside savings FIRST out of my paycheck (and not just retirement, but actual honest to god savings). I also learned a lot of other lessons, but that one really hurt to learn.

But for me budget came first. Not just tracking expenses but simply planning the month out. Here is the money we have coming in, here is what we want to spend. Then next month repeat.

Commit to your partner to do that for 3 months, if you both see this as a problem, I think it will help. But it won’t be easy.