LPT: Name your bank accounts with the amounts they need to balance out at the end of each month (+ overdraft)
LPT: Name your bank accounts with the amounts they need to balance out at the end of each month (+ overdraft)
-
This applies mostly to accounts you use to set aside for different expense areas creating an implicit metric you can look at the end of each month to determine how far off the mark things worked out
-
Once you get everything on schedule, build some redundancy to it by having an "overdraft" amount on each account that is added to the necessary monthly balance and always replenish it so it is available in a pinch.
Really doesn't work with my life. Extreme, sudden expenses, such as a 6k health insurance debt, hit me with as much surprise as a sudden project that pays 20k within 20 days. I just got to roll with it and hope it stays in the + somehow.
It only helps, there's not a downside other than seeing the objective truth of where things ended that month. Its more of a north star type thing
If I meet the amount, i succeeded and I get to save any excess and actually keep it more or less
If I dont, it comes out of savings so i dont get behind which is absolutely killer when I get in that cycle
Definitely a good approach, maybe for people like ourselves even more so. But for it to work with my chaotic finances, I'd probably need a business account and pay myself a regular wage. If I'd do things in such an orderly fashion, I'd probably not be here in the first place, and we'd never have met :-)
Name your bank accounts? Since when is that a thing? Don't they like use your actual name?
Like on the bank website. If you have more than one account number (like checking account + a savings account - NOT separate login), you can "rename" them.
I have two checking accounts, one has the default name "Checking" for spending money and the other named "Bills" for ....paying bills. Every paycheck, $X gets added to the Bills account and the rest into checking. This was VERY IMPORTANT for me when I was scraping by because it guaranteed I wouldn't forget I had a bill coming up and unknowingly spent the money
Oh that's right, I forget people like to use online services these days. Back in 2008, I worked at two different banks installing new computer systems.
They gave my dumbass C3 security clearance, just to fix an icon on the desktop that didn't properly refresh after a software update. Do you comprehend how much damage I could have caused if I wanted to with C3 security clearance?
I don't trust online services at all. If I want to deal with my bank, I go in the bank in person.
Edit: I'm a cash only person since then.