I custom-created an Excel spreadsheet that works for us. Tabs for each month, Christmas, birthdays, mortgage, credit cards, savings, car loan, vacation.
Monthly sheet has a list of each expense on the left. Mortgage payment, property tax, car ins, home ins, electricity, gas, water, Internet, cable, phone, food, gas, pet expense - anything we need to pay each month. Beside that I list other necessary or unexpected items (bday, swimming lessons, etc.). Beside that I list our savings (rrsps, resp, etc.) and current debt total.
Underneath come the bi-weekly paycheques and a list of which expenses get paid out of which paycheque. Including paying down visa, money in savings and our vacation. What's left is for everything else that comes along. Ie, finding out my swimsuit quit and needing a new one, new running shoes for my son, etc. money leftover stays in the account for the next unexpected item.
Everything starts off black and gets changed to blue as that item was paid or saved. Everything we purchase gets detailed/listed under that paycheque so we see where, when and how much gets spent.
This sounds complicated, but surprisingly not. I love seeing a month at a glance, watching the visa go down (almost gone), and our savings & vacation fund go up every week or two.