Filling negative buckets
Hi all,
I've recently switched from mvelopes.com to MoneyWell.... Life is MUCH better on this side.... mvelopes has just released a new version and have completely screwed up their chances to be successful (In my not so humble opinion)...
My question is about filling negative buckets. Here's the
workflow that I typically do...
Every two weeks I fund my buckets based on my paycheck. Then as
transactions come in I move them to buckets as appropriate, but I
don't refill the buckets when they go negative. I keep a reasonable
amount of money allocated to my Income bucket to cover.
The amounts are usually very small, ie $20, $100 here and
there.
I notice when I do a "fill buckets" that i don't ever see the negative buckets... only the spending plan amounts for those buckets.
I know this isn't a "pure" implementation of the envelope budgeting system.... but it seems to reduce my stress around finances to not have to hold on that tightly to the bucketed amounts...
What do you do? What is the best way to handle this? Do I need
to change my workflow? if so, how?
i hope this makes sense.
Thanks in advance for the inputs.
bob
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Support Staff 2 Posted by Tamara on 07 Jan, 2012 05:14 AM
Hi Bob,
The Fill Buckets screen won't try to fill more than the planned amount. If you want to cover those negative balances, you'd need to make a separate money flow from your income bucket to the negative bucket. You can do that by dragging the income bucket and dropping it on the expense bucket. It will pop up a dialog box to create the money flow.
Tamara
3 Posted by rlbjr8898 on 07 Jan, 2012 03:08 PM
ok... I understand that. My bucket list is pretty long and I have to scroll down to do that.
I was just wondering if there is an easier way.
Thanks for the help
bob
Support Staff 4 Posted by Tamara on 07 Jan, 2012 09:44 PM
Bob,
The other way to make a money flow is to go to the Cash Flow > Move Money Between Buckets menu or use the ctrl-⌘-M keyboard shortcut to bring up the New Money Flow sheet. You can enter the bucket names by typing the name until it matches so that may be faster, but it won't auto-populate the amount field like it does when dragging, so you'd need to enter the amount of money to flow.
Just offering another option in case it works better for you.
Tamara
5 Posted by rlbjr8898 on 11 Feb, 2012 07:21 PM
Thanks for the response.
Could you talk with the developers about possibly a function called "fill negative buckets"? I realize that it would be low on the list. But I have a feeling it would be really useful for people.
Thanks
bob
Support Staff 6 Posted by Tamara on 15 Feb, 2012 06:00 PM
Bob,
I'll send them your suggestion.
Thanks,
Tamara
Kevin Hoctor closed this discussion on 21 Feb, 2012 05:54 AM.