My GTD Budget System
gmcerveny
I created a budgeting system based on GTD. I have two checking
accounts setup. The first is basicly an allowance account that I do
whatever I want with. It's kind of like throwing money into a
"@spend_this" folder. I have a second checking account that is used to
automatically pay bills and have direct debits. This is sort of a
"@bills" folder. It's all arranged so that you think about your bills
once, and then move them out of your mind. Anyway, I put in the info
up at a website: www.stackbacks.com. Please let me know what you
think.
-Greg
kelly
to do already, but without the two separate accounts, which I think
makes it a lot easier to not spend money you shouldn't be. But I think
it would have to work a little different for people who are married and
want some personal disposable income that is separate from household
disposable income. For example, my fiance and I have our money
basically together, with it being deposited into the same account and
bills coming out of the same account. I like the idea of setting up a
second "allowance" account like you've said for variable expenses that
I would consider "household" or "together" expenses - things like
groceries, gas, dining out or going to movies together, etc. But then
in addition to that we would also want some personal allowance that
would be the same amount for each of us that we could spend however we
like - clothing, going out with other friends, saving for bigger
purchases that one person wants for their own personal use like an ipod
or something, etc. My thinking is that the best way to do that would be
to each take our personal allowances in cash from the allowance account
after each pay period, and leave the household allowance in the
account. Any thoughts/suggestions about this?
Also, we use our credit cards for everything to get air miles (works
out to about a free flight every year or year and a half to where our
parents live, with only a $35 annual fee, so definitely worth it). I've
tried keeping a page in my planner to track expenses more regularly,
etc., so that I only spend a set amount, but just can't quite make
myself do it. I'm thinking that maybe with this system, the only way
for me to really track what I'm spending on my credit cards is go
online every few days and pay off whatever we've spent, so I can more
easily track what we've spent. Same with bills - I tend to do automatic
bill payment on my credit card instead of debit also for air miles - so
I'm thinking it would be best to use a separate credit card for bill
payments so I can track those separately.
Evan Edwards
> Anyway, I put in the info
> up at a website: www.stackbacks.com.
Very nice site.
> Please let me know what you
> think.
Coincidentally, this is almost identical to the system that my fiance and
I just set up about four hours ago. We added savings and investment accounts
into the system (which was what prompted the discussion). Basically, savings
is a fixed bill out of the bill side, and chunks are drawn from it
periodically to an investment account (my father is an estate
manager/investment banker, so it somewhat boils down to "Give Dad Money").
--
Evan "JabberWokky" Edwards
http://www.cheshirehall.org/
Bryan Ewbank
http://www.thebword.com
It uses three accounts instead of two, but the principle's the same.
The accounts are (from memory, might be off a bit)...
(1) regular monthly expenses -- the "steady drain", if you will.
(2) savings and longer-term periodic expenses
(3) the "unbudgeted" budgeted -- if it's empty, you can't spend anything.
It also provides a tool and a process to help get going. I've found
it worth-while. No relationship to www.thebword.com, other than being
a cautiously optimistic and happy recent adoptee...
- Bryan Ewbank
Joanie McCollom
That seems like a good, simple system for tracking money. The only thing I
wonder about is the
cash part. Cash is hard to track, and it goes so quickly! I like to reserve
cash for those times
when I really can't use my debit/credit card, which creates a record of
spending. Of course,
there's no hard limit, and you can easily overspend. It's not like cash; when
your wallet's empty,
that's it.
-joanie
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gmcerveny
I have my system setup with a couple other savings accounts as well. I
just wanted to get the information up there as a simple base system and
see how people reacted. Once you get the base system setup, then
adding a savings account for...
emergency fund
auto fund (i aspire to pay cash for my next car)
vacatation fund
investments
health savings
retirement
etc
Is just a simple as setting up a new auto transfer and treating it like
a bill.
I can definitely see where you're coming from on the married couples
expenses. I'll let you know what I do when I get married :)
As far as the credit cards go, I see both sides of that. I've used the
2% cash back, and I've overspent.
drew...@gmail.com
Thank you. I mean, THANK YOU. I am a father who has been struggling
with a piss-poor marriage for years, which ended up with piss-poor
finances, and now I'm getting divorced, and I'll be a single dad. I've
been wracking my brain how to wrangle things back under control so I
and my two boys can get our finances back in line. I'm headed to the
bank in just a few minutes to open my new account.
I CAN DO THIS ONE. How cool is that.
Drew Mills
Emily Price
Windows software called, oddly enough, "Budget". It's real strength is
that, instead of just tracking your money like most budgeting
software, it implements the envelope method. You set up your income
sources and tell is what amount from each should go into each envelope
by setting the expense and pay cycle (everything from 1 week to 6
months, i think). When you enter a purchase, you tell it what envelope
to take the money out of. It tracks the balance in each envelope
separately and has an additional spot for unbudgeted money. You can
even nest envelopes inside eachother (i.e. "Bills" would contain
"Rent", "Electricity", "Phone", etc. As long as you stick to what it
says you have in each envelope, you'll always have the money to pay
bills. It even has a calendar so you can put in reminders to pay. It
sounds a lot more complicated than it is--once you play with it it's
pretty intuitive. As a broke college students, it saved my ass many
times (until I fell off the wagon with entering my receipts)
It's not free (about $30) but it's saved me many times that in
overdraft fees and late fees.
Anyway, it's available at http://www.snowmintcs.com/
I'm not associated with the company, it just worked really well for me
and I wanted to pass it on.
- Emily
rach
before - a book called 'The Barefoot Investor.' It's by an Australian
author, and I've found in past posts that people rapidly forget when
you're not from the 'States so I'll repeat, it's by an Australian
author, so it deals with Australian laws and so on (for instance,
superannuation and medical insurance [what with Medicare medical
insurance is kind of optional here]). However, it did remind me a lot
of Getting Things Done, and I highly recommend tracking it down.
It's helped me a lot. I now have an every day account (next action)
that is, almost without fail, empty by the end of the week, but that's
okay because my high-interest internet only savings account (projects,
kind of) is pretty much always quite healthy unless I had to drop a wad
on something I'd already planned for. My managed investment fund
(sometime/maybe) is doing quite nicely. I ignore it, feed it every now
and then, and it seems to take care of itself.
But, yes. I highly recommend 'The Barefoot Investor.' If you're a bit
of a finance buff you might find it a bit too colloquial, but I'm now a
poor arts student with a managed investment fund of her very own, so
it's helped me out!