Budgeting
Budgeting as a Couple
Three structures: fully joint, fully separate, or proportional. Which you pick matters less than agreeing the amount above which you check with each other.
5 min read
The library
38 plain-English reads on budgeting, saving, investing, debt, credit and taxes. Newest first unless you say otherwise.
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Budgeting
Envelopes and Cash Stuffing: What the Method Is Actually Doing
The method works, and not for the reason its advocates give. Understanding the actual mechanism tells you which categories to use it on and which to leave alone.
6 min read
Banking
The Checking Account Float, and Why It Broke Your Budget
Your balance and your available balance are different numbers, and the gap is where overdraft fees live. Why a gas pump can hold $175 of your money for five days.
6 min read
Budgeting
Pay Yourself First, and What the Order Actually Buys
Saving what is left over produced $2,245 across a year. Saving the same amount first produced $6,720, on identical income and identical spending habits. The mechanism is not discipline.
6 min read
Budgeting
Budget Percentages by Income: 50/30/20 Does Not Scale
One set of percentages cannot fit every income, because the cost of keeping a roof and getting to work does not scale down. Realistic bands at five income levels, from spending data rather than a slogan.
6 min read
Budgeting
The 50/30/20 Rule, Tested Against Real Incomes
The rule is quoted everywhere and tested nowhere. Run against what US households actually spend, only the top fifth of earners can keep needs under 50%, and the bottom fifth spends 81.6% there.
7 min read
BudgetingGuide
Zero-Based Budgeting, Step by Step
Every dollar gets a job before the month starts. The six steps, the mid-month reconciliation nobody mentions, and roughly how long the first one takes.
8 min read
BudgetingGuide
Budget Categories That Actually Work
Most category lists are too fine to survive February. Here are the sixteen that hold, what belongs in each, and the four that are missing from almost every budget that failed.
8 min read
Budgeting
Why Budgets Fail in Week Three
Budgets do not fail from weak discipline. They fail because five specific things were never in them, and three of the five are predictable to the dollar: $1,011 a month, in this case.
8 min read
Saving
Sinking Fund vs Emergency Fund: The Difference That Costs You
One is for the expenses you know are coming. The other is for the ones you do not. Two households, the same money, the same balance every month, and one of them ends December with $296.
6 min read
Budgeting
How to Budget When Your Income Changes Every Month
Budget on your lowest month, not your average. Seven of twelve months fall below an average, and on one freelancer's real year, budgeting on it would have spent the tax money exactly.
9 min read
Saving
What Actually Counts as an Emergency
A $640 alternator on a nine-year-old car is not an emergency. A $340 windscreen is. The three-part test that separates them, and why it decides whether your fund survives August.
6 min read
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