Summary: Budgeting should not be about tedious money-tracking, sacrifice, and secrets from (or arguments with) your partner. Done effectively, it's about setting priorities and achieving them faster and with less effort and stress.

Personally, I'm one of those financially-disciplined people who doesn't keep a regular budget. But I naturally minimise expenses, know my annual cost of living (~ $22,000 for needs and $5,000 for wants), and my annual investment income is well in excess of my expenses. My partner has a larger variety of discretionary expenses to track and so does keep a regular budget and enjoys it.

At the essential level, budgeting is how you achieve the first part of the key principle to building wealth: Spend less than you earn and invest the difference wisely. And if aiming for financial freedom, an annual budget is necessary to know your annual expenses (needs plus wants), and thus the total wealth needed to generate sufficient income to fund this lifestyle.

Establishing a comprehensive budget forces you to proactively set goals and priorities. And properly tracking all of your current expenses is the only way to determine how your current spending lines up with your priorities - both current and future ones. Once you've actually given every dollar a job, you can assess how effective your daily and monthly financial habits become in supporting your desired life and future.

At some point, you can ease off on the frequency and detail of tracking your expenses and income as you'll have simplified your payments, saving and spending, and you'll also be confident mistakes and surprises are rare. Instead, you focus on the big picture like whether you need to increase your income or investing capabilities to achieve your goals.