This feels like stuff I’ve gone through years ago, that feeling that money has an “expiration date” and it should be spent soon while you still have it because you feel it will leave your hands. Unfortunately it is supposed to leave your hands to pay bills and rent. I promise that after the first few months of dedicated paying off bills, you will have fun money again.

For me, what worked was splitting my monthly bills and rent into two similar sized chunks. First paycheck would pay off the first chunk of bills and second payday would go toward the remaining bills and next months rent. Whatever is leftover after paying bills goes through my second phase of budgeting which is groceries, gas for the vehicle, and savings. While at the grocery store, I used to just purchase cheap crap. Ramen and Mac and cheese make decent affordable meals. Now I have shifted into meal prepping and recreating fast food items I enjoy. It’s a lot cheaper to make breakfast burritos that you just warm up in the microwave than picking up one from some place before work each morning.

After bills and rent and groceries and gas and savings, then you got your fun money.

I admit I’m not as financially savvy as most of the people in this sub, but maintaining my budget in this manner really pulled me out of bad financial times after my divorce. I hope it can help you.