Making Sense of the Colors on the Savings Budget Progress Bars

Google Sheets
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Re-opening because the poster’s original question #3 is one I’ve had for a while. I posted it in the original thread on the Progress Bars when they were added, but I didn’t get a response there. More generally, I cannot map the green / red / blue occurrences and relative lengths to what’s going on in my savings budget, except (maybe) that blue always seems to mean I have sufficient savings to cover this month entirely and then some? Beyond that, I cannot map the length or the colors of the bars in a consistent fashion, especially the case of a partially red and partially green bar (the green is used up savings that month and the red overage? )

I don’t think this is a problem with my sheet or with the progress bar, but with my mental model. Any description of the behavior will be appreciated.

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Let me take a stab at this, @michael303. For income:

  • Blue/red: blue is income to date with red being the shortfall to hit the budget. (Scaled to budget amount)
  • Green: budget met or exceeded.

For expenses:

  • Blue/white: blue is spending to date with white being the remainder to budget. (Scaled to budget amount)
  • Green: hit budget exactly.
  • Green/red: green is spending within budget with red being spending in excess of budget. (Scaled to total spend… i.e. including overage)

Hope this helps.
If I missed one, let me know.

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