I’m new to Tiller and I’m trying to set up the Savings Budget. As far as I can tell the Savings Budget ONLY accounts for the income that I budget and NOT for the money that is already in my account when I start, is that correct? I would like to allocate the money already in my account to categories (envelopes), is there a way to do that and see how much I have “left to allocate”?
Thanks in advance!
The easiest way is to go to your first month’s budget, change the “Adjust Modifies” setting (in G14 by default, I think) to “Savings”, then go through and enter the amounts you want to allocate in each category (in the green boxes). Once you are done, be sure to run the “Update Savings Budget” function. There’s some more detail on the Savings Budget page.
Those amounts will be reflected in the second column. If you look at the top, next to “Expense,” it will tell you the total amount you have allocated. You can compare that to your start of the month bank balance to see how much is left.
When you say “start of the month bank balance” does this mean total of all accounts? So, say at the start of the month my checking account has a $4,000 balance and my credit card has a $1,000 balance (owed). Would my “start of the month bank balance” be $3,000?
No, just actual cash on hand. You want it to be your start of the month cash balance because as the month goes along, purchases and credit card payments will be reflected in your Transactions sheet and deducted from those amounts.