I've heard this called the jar method.

I have accounts for travel, house expenses, utility bills, groceries, car expenses, and fun money. Each of them gets part of my paycheck. Every couple of months I take a look to see if things are getting out of whack.

The best part is that I can be an idiot and overspend with the fun money account. If I spend it all, there's absolutely no repercussions, since everything important is already safely in different accounts.

Also, when car expenses (or vacations) roll around, I already have money put aside for it.