Bucket Budgetting

05/24/15

So, with my abandonment of Mint, it's time to work up a system. Right now, I'm using a simple Google Docs spreadsheet wherein I'll put my expenses in by-hand everyday. Starting today. I got about a week's of purchases to catch up on, and then I'll work towards putting in spending everyday. I'll keep using Mint at first to make sure I don't miss anything it sees (it does look at all my accounts for me, after all).

Using Mint to do some of the stuff I don't feel like doing or automating right now is probably smart.

The way it does budgetting, however, is definitely not something I'm interested in. I'm interested in paying myself a specific amount every time period towards some budget. For example, I'm interested in putting $11 into my food budget or "account" everyday. The idea is to not overwithdraw from any account, ever.

My actual income, and when it arrives, and my spending need not be coupled. At a higher level I can look at the two and make sure my spending is much lower than my income.

And so, paying or filling each account or bucket at regular intervals (as determined by how regularly I need to purchase goods with that bucket's contents).

Each bucket that is filled would be expected to be emptied by some goal or deadline. So, time-interval buckets would expect their contents to be emptied by the next filling of the bucket. Leftovers need to be redirected to goal-oriented buckets (money towards something specific). Maybe also event-oriented buckets (overspending does happen from time to time).

For example, I have a time-interval bucket for grocery shopping that refills everyday to $11. I rarely pay the total $11 and even rarer (though still happening) I go over. When I underspend, the leftovers should go to a small buffer (with max amount) to cover overspending. I think an additional $11 for buffer would be good (I should never spend twice as much). Then, there should be grocery-related items that are more expensive than $11 that should fill up overtime so they can be purchased on the $11 budget but are also explicitly planned for.

So, I guess I'm thinking groceries should look something like this:

1. Daily $11 bucket that overflows at $11 into grocery buffer
2. Grocery buffer overflows at $11 into list of things to buy
   • Spices ($10 max?)
   • Honey ($15 max)
   • Special occasions (??? max)

If all buckets are full, additional money can be further diverted to savings.

I like this idea, Stephan. I'm going to try to make a web interface for it.