Trouble Getting Started With the Savings Budget

Google Sheets
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I love the idea of the Savings Budgets & the Savings & Debt templates. I watched the webinar and read the documentation but actually implementing it is proving to be a bigger challenge than I thought. I started implementing shortly after it came out in Q4 but wasn’t having success so decided to wait until start of this year.

  1. Can I wipe the slate clean and start fresh with the Savings Budget & the Savings & Debt templates? I tried to delete everything in the Budget Journal tab but when I made an update to the Savings Budget using the tiller labs add on, it seems to have added back in those old line items from Q4 changes.
  2. The Long Term Savings total in the Savings column of my Savings Budget tab has the wrong sum of all the line items and I don’t know why. Might have something to do with the Budget Journal tab?
  3. I have a “passive income” category in my income categories and I received a lump sum in January. This make my available income surplus high. Im transferring 80% of it to one of my long term savings goals, the rest is going to retirement category that I don’t include in the Savings Budget. For me, the savings budget is for big item purchases I’m saving for or emergency savings areas, not stuff like 401ks/IRA/etc. This means it will look like Ill have a 20% surplus income in Jan unless I split that random income line item and hide 20% of it in the transactions tab?

If I can get some clarity on #1 then I think I can solve the rest of this. Hoping this works out and is worth the time! Thanks

2

Update

I realized I had to remove old budgets I started in Q4 in the categories tab to resolve #2. I realized I can simply delete the tabs needed and then just add them with tiller solutions to resolve #1. I think I have the right idea of #3 and working through that right now.

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You shouldn’t need to delete old budgets or data, @keenan.burkepitt. It’s not well documented but there is an easy way to ignore data/rollovers in your Savings Budget prior to the current year.

Hope this helps.