Ok, so to all the folks that show up and participate in these conversations, I thank you. I've been using the app since about October, and I think I'm finally where I need to be to use it wisely.
I'm looking for some strategic advice on using the app, and I'm guessing the advice might even blend into financial planning. Seems like the right group to put it out there to. Here's the deal. I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel...the tunnel that is a doctorate program where I paid oodles of money for my education/ training (clinical psychology), made zero dollars for many years, my wife's profession doesn't heap money on her, and debt reared it's ugly head. Now I'm on my pre-doc internship making a bit of money (still doesn't cover daycare for 2 lovely boys...and it will just cover it next year on post-doc) and we're getting close to not being in the red on a monthly basis. But we will be. We've cut as much as we can, and this too shall pass. I do get student loan money, and I just received my last check. This is what we fall back on monthly to even things out - regular expenses, credit card debt, etc. I am in need of some advice in a couple of areas: 1) Now that we've moved for my Internship, gotten settled in, and our expenses are evening out a bit, I'd like to "start over" in terms of my expense buckets. There's lots of red, and now we know where our "fill" lines really need to be in this [expensive] part of the country, we need to keep within these limits, but it would feel much better to not see past red. How do I do this? I've looked at Change Cash Flow Start Date a bit, but the income buckets got all wacky. I saw a post that might have addressed this, but I wasn't sure it applied to my situation. I have my real-time balance for my checking account, credit cards, and savings account right now. I also haven't yet allocated all of the student loan money yet, so that should be alive in that income bucket (Student Loan). 2) Is there a way to automatically add a certain amount from the Student Loan income bucket to my monthly income/expenses so we can set a dollar figure and stick to it, rather than feel like there's this large sum of money just waiting to be spent? 3) Are people happy with how they've arranged buckets for paying off debt? I do have an "account" for my car loan (I'm not that concerned about tracking every penny of interest on it - I just have a set payment monthly and work with that) and obviously credit card accounts. I currently have a "debt repayment" bucket that gets income to pay off minimum (or extra when I can) payments, a "bank charges" bucket for credit card finance charges and other bank fees, and an "emergency fund" bucket (that I'm going to start funding). In less than a year, I'll have "Student Loans" to start paying off. Any advice on how to configure all of this? 4) Finally (though I'm sure there's more!), have people found that they like lots of buckets or fewer buckets (expense)? I have a solid number for very specific things, though I'm tempted to narrow them down to say, fixed expenses, and then specific buckets for much more variable catagories (even though they have a "fill" limit). Thanks, all. Thanks, Kevin. This is such a great group of folks. Jason --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "No Thirst Software User Forum" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/no-thirst-software?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
