The envelope budget comprehensive guide mentions that you can run two budgets at once, including a unique monthly budget. It says that the budgets will only share the categories and transactions sheets.
But if it shares those sheets, how will the budgets be different? Am I missing something?
-Allen
@lazyrunnr welcome! That’s a good question, and to answer it we have to go into the details of how the envelope budget works. I haven’t tried to run multiple budgets at once, but I’ve been using the envelope budget for a while and I think I understand it.
The main thing is that the Envelope Budget works differently than the default Tiller Foundation template. If you’ve used the Foundation template before you know that the categories sheet is where the budget information is stored, in the columns to the right. On the Envelope Budget sheet the budget information is instead stored on the Budgets History sheet (hidden by default). The categories sheet is only for setting categories, which is why it can be shared by multiple budgets.
Hope that makes sense, feel free to ask more questions!
Also, I have no idea what your situation is, but since you’re reading about envelope budgeting in Tiller you may also be interested in the new Savings budget sheet here: Add the Savings Budget sheet
If you’re just getting started with envelope budgeting in Tiller it is a newer (and in my opinion easier to use) way of doing it. It also uses the Foundation template, which is nice.
Thanks, that makes sense to me, and I understand that the categories sheet is separate from the budget info.
I guess my question is how can the budgets be different if the same categories and same transactions are in both? I’m probably missing something really simple here, but I understand that I can set different budget amounts within the categories, but if the exact same transactions show up how does it create a different result?
I’m trying to set up a biweekly budget for income that comes biweekly, and a monthly budget that covers all other income. It’s really about simplicity, as the biweekly income only goes to 2-3 categories, and I want to be able to separate that income and those expenses .
Yeah I see what you mean. It does sort of feel like a very minor distinction. My assumption has always just been that people like to visualize their data different ways, I know I would think about a weekly budget differently than I would a monthly one. But I’ve never actually used it myself. I can also see how that isn’t really helpful for what you’re trying to do.
I’m trying to figure out how to make your setup work, and unfortunately I’m not sure how I’d do it. Ideally you would want different categories hidden in each budget, but I don’t think there’s a way to do that. @heather do you have any suggestions?