I couldn’t find this in a search, I’m sure it’s out there but I probably need better search terms.
I have a personal budget of spending that I would like to keep the same next year, but track if I’m above or below budget across the year end. Let’s say I’m $67 in the hole at the end of this year. How could I apply that to next year to try to make up for it, without just changing my budget total in the categories tab? Would I just add a manual transaction on the 31st that is a credit and then a debit on the 1st or something? Actually move some money around somehow and apply it to the budget? Any other ideas?
If I’m understanding you correctly, this sounds like a great use case for the Savings Budget Template. You could basically set that line item as having -$67 in savings to start the year, and that deficit could disappear over the course of the year. Other than the Transactions sheet, I probably spend more time on my Savings Budget sheet than any other. Worth checking out if you aren’t already using it.
Thanks. I watched the video and added the Savings Budget. I’m not quite sure how that helps with rollover at the end of the year that’s in the Categories sheet?
Hmm. I thought you wanted to carry over that deficit without adjusting your budget. Using the Savings Budget, you could keep your budget the same and put the deficit into the savings. If you have unspent budget in the first months of 2024, it will offset the savings deficit. More concretely:
In January 2024, you have:
-$67 in Savings for Category A
$200 in Budget for Category A
$133 in Actuals for Category A
Then, in February 2024, you would have:
$0 in Savings for Category A (by moving the unspent Budget for January into Savings)
$200 in Budget for Category A
Is that what you’re trying to do, or maybe I’m misunderstanding?
Thanks for responding and being willing to help. I’m not sure I totally follow, but I think my situation is a little different.
My Categories sheet has my budget for the year from January 2023 to December 2023.
I have a Personal Spending category that I’ll be behind by about $67 at the end of this year.
But on January 1st, 2024 this budget resets and the results in Year to Date, Monthly Budget, and even the Savings Budget (I think) will be reset and I won’t be accountable for the $67 I was in the hole at the end of 2023.
I could modify my 2024 budget and lower it by the amount that would spread out this cost over the year, but I don’t want to do that.
I’d like to just see, on January 1, 2024, that I’m at -$67 in the Personal Spending category. I’m trying to figure out how to do that.
I don’t see the Savings Budget as rolling over from the end of the Categories year to the new year. Is there another way to do that?
Sorry, I’m not able to help, but one last shot: You could just put -$67 in Savings for the Personal Spending category for January 2024. The money (or deficit) in Savings doesn’t have to come from anywhere else. So, you’re not modifying your budget all, but the -$67 would be reflected in the Savings column and hold you accountable for that $67.
As in alter the Savings column directly? It appears to be a calculated result. When I just tried changing it now to test it clobbered all the rest of the Savings rows and gave me #REF errors.
Right now I’m just leaning towards jury rigging in phony transactions. One on December 31 to even me out and one on January 1 to put me back where I was.
No. You make all of the adjustments in the Savings Budget by adding or subtracting values in the Adjust column (Column I for me):
-Make sure that your Personal Spending category is set to Savings in the Track column of your Categories sheet.
-If you want to adjust the Savings, then you need to toggle “Adjust +/- Modifies” to Savings.
-Once you’ve made an adjustment, you need to click on Update Saving Budget under Tools in the Tiller Community Solutions. That’ll make the adjustment stick.
Sorry, that seems more complicated than it actually is.
If you adjust Budget, it will. But if you have it set to modify Savings, then it won’t touch Budget. That’s what that “Adjust +/- Modifies” toggle is for.
So it’s the new year and I was hoping to apply this knowledge to the Savings Budget sheet. But now the sheet seems to only be valid for 2023 and there isn’t an option in the pull-down to select 2024. I tried looking through the spreadsheet, it uses some things I’m not familiar with and at one point calls INDIRECT and basically the date calculation is hard for me to grasp. Do I just need to make a new one for the new year?
I still don’t see what I need to do to start 2024 budgets in the category sheet after reading above. I adjusted the 2023 to be the new year and thought that it would roll in 2024. There should be a button to update the year and then adjust the monthly category budgets as needed.
I just went to the Categories sheet and where it said Jan 2023 (1/1/2023) I changed that to be 1/1/2024. Then the rest of the months updated and it displayed as Jan 2024.