Your Day-To-Day Money
Here's where the whole program comes together in a single screen! Your income is on the left. Your bills are at the bottom and taking center stage are your Day-To-Day expenses.
You'll also notice that there are little “?'s” all over the screen. These are extra help files that explain exactly what to do. In the Personality Budgeting tradition, you always have the help you need right at your fingertips.
At a glance you can see both the proposed budget and your actual spending and here is where it all makes sense.
A few quick points…
- Yes, you can have as many categories as you like.
- Yes, the income can be changed/modified easily.
- Yes, that really is a “treasure chest” and yes you do keep your money in a treasure chest. You see, the Day-To-Day money is spread across all your purses, wallets and bank accounts. Bringing it all together is a challenge that has destroyed many a good budget. This is different. You have an approximate total that is changed as needed. In other words you are not spending all your time chasing the few coins to balance an account yet you are able to save for things in future pays. A good example of this is when you are too busy to grocery shop one pay and need the money for the big grocery shop next pay.
- Yes, you can view all the bills for this period.
- Yes, you do have total control.
The best advice here is to give the Day-To-Day section a go you'll be thrilled!
Let's look at a category.
The big question is of course… Where did the details for the categories come from?
The “Category Screen” is the simple solution to the complex problem… How do you record all the little expenses?
Here are just a few of the ways people are using the categories. You're sure to find many others…
Some people set up the categories they want and record their major expenses. This gives them both a good understanding on where they are up to AND a good basis for predicting the future expenses.
Some people record every expense for a few weeks until they have a good idea on where their money is going. From this they are able to come up with good guesses for their proposed spending. With this done they don't bother with recording any more.
Some people choose a particular category they are worried about and record what is happening there until they know what they need to be spending in that area.
Some people have lots of categories and keep full records of their spending.
Some people just allocate a certain amount of money to a category and don't bother keeping lists of expenses.
Have you caught the excitement? Have you seen the possibilities? Here is a way of sorting your money that you are in control of. You can make changes. You can leave it for a while and come back. You can use it daily. The choice is yours.