Savings Budget template issue Balance Account Balances with Budgeted Amounts

I’m having an issue with the Savings Budget template from Tiller Community Solutions. What is the best way to make sure all $’s in accounts are budgeted?

By default the Savings Budget gets all it’s budget info from the Categories sheet, so as long as every category has a budget set, and every transaction gets categorized, you should have everything covered.

I guess Im confused. We budget income for the current month and budget expenses each of the categories on the category worksheet.

The income is received throughout the month and may not be received when the expense is entered/paid by the bank.

I have sufficient funds to in my bank accounts to cover the current month, so Im not sure how to handle this other than put the excess funds in category savings.

Coming from YNAB these funds were kept in Ready to Assign or in a Future Income category, then moved to Ready to Assign at the beginning of the month.

Any suggestions?

Can you help us understand further? I’m a bit confused by the scenario.

For example, if your monthly income is $10K, are you simply not putting $10K in your income categorie(s) every month? And then budgeting your total monthly expenses across all expense categories?

For most people, you get your paycheck deposited in your checking account, and it sits there until it gets used via expenses. I don’t understand the excess funds part of this? Are you trying to categorize your income even further until it gets debited against?

If income is 10,000 and monthly expenses are 7,000 where does the remaining 3,000 go? From a YNAB perspective every dollar gets budgeted or Remains in Available to Budget.

No where. It stays in Income. I’m not sure why you need to recategorize it or move it somewhere else? That’s why I’m confused but I might not understand your use case since I’ve never used YNAB.

I’ve tried a lot of tools except for YNAB and I’ve never recategorized Income when it deposited. Not saying you are wrong; I just don’t understand.

Thought more about this…maybe you just mean what to do with any surplus month to month? I do one of four things with that $3K:

  1. Let it ride in Income going forward.
  2. Transfer it to online savings account.
  3. Invest it.
  4. Move it to an expense category I call “Spending Buffer” which basically becomes a floating dollar amount that I carry forward from month to month and pull from as needed. It’s almost like an emergency savings within your checking account.

Admittedly my #1 and #4 are a little redundant. Should probably just go all-in on one or the other.

I think maybe you mean something like #4?

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Thanks. Im trying #4. I need to transition from YNAB and train my mind the “new” workflow.

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