Everyday situations

The other pages explain each screen. This one starts from what happens in real life and shows how to record it so the budget stays right.

Starting in the middle of the month

There is no need to enter the past. Create your accounts with their current balance as of today: that money lands in Ready to Assign. Assign it to what is still to come this month, and record transactions from today on. Next month you will have a full month of history.

Income that varies

When income changes from month to month (freelance work, commissions), budget only the money that has already arrived, never what you expect. Assign the essentials first: housing, bills, food.

Once you get ahead, leave some money in Ready to Assign at the end of the month, or keep it in a category such as "Next month". What is left in Ready to Assign carries into the next month, so you can start each month by assigning money you already earned.

Bills that come once a year

Car tax, insurance, a yearly subscription: give each one a category with a Save up goal by the month it is due (Goals). Moneta tells you how much to set aside each month, and Fund goals in Quick assign does it in one tap. When the bill comes, the money is waiting in the category.

A refund or a return

Record the money that comes back as an inflow in the category of the original purchase, not in an income category. The category gets the money back, as if the purchase never happened. An income category would add it to Ready to Assign instead.

Expenses shared with someone

You paid a dinner of 120 and your friend owes you 60. Enter it as a split: 60 in Dining Out and 60 in a category such as "Owed to me". Assign money to cover both. When your friend pays you back, record the 60 as an inflow in "Owed to me": that category returns to zero.

Taking out cash

Have a Cash account, and record the withdrawal as a transfer from checking to cash. It doesn't touch the budget: the money just changes accounts. Categorize what you spend from the cash account, as with any other account.

A credit card that already has debt

When you add the card, enter the amount owed. By default it goes to Starting Balance and comes out of Ready to Assign, which may go negative if the debt is larger than the money you have.

To pay it off over time instead, choose a category of its own as the starting balance category, such as "Old card debt", and turn on Roll overspending over in it. The debt then sits there as a negative balance, and each month you assign what you can afford to pay it down. New purchases on the card take money from their own categories as usual.

Paying the credit card bill

Record the payment as a transfer from checking to the card. As long as your purchases were recorded with categories that had the money, the money for the bill is there: it was set aside when you bought. See Credit cards.

A loan payment with interest

Keep the loan as a tracking account, with what you owe. Each month:

1. Enter the whole payment as a transfer from checking to the loan, in a category such as "Car loan": the money leaves the budget.
2. If your bank says how much of it was interest, enter that interest on the loan account as an outflow, so its balance matches what the bank says you still owe.

Moving money to savings

A transfer between two budget accounts, from checking to savings for example, doesn't change the budget. What you save is in the categories you assigned it to, like an Emergency Fund.

When a category runs out

Spending more than a category had is not a mistake to hide: cover it by moving money from another category. That is the point of the method: you choose what gives way, instead of the overspending coming out of next month without you noticing.