Rule One: Give Every Dollar a Job
How do I give every dollar a job?
In the Budget column, assign dollars to each category until your Available to Budget amount is $0.
In the sample below, we started out with $1000 Available to Budget and budgeted $200 into Groceries and $100 into Restaurants. That total is shown in the line Budgeted in May. $300 has been budgeted so far. This is subtracted from Available to Budget and there is still $700 which needs to be assigned to categories.
Is there any time I don’t budget to zero?
Typically, no. All dollars should be assigned to a category. However some people save for their Buffer by letting some money roll into next month.
What happens if I don’t give every dollar a job?
When you don’t budget all of the money that is Available to Budget, that same amount appears in next month’s header under Not budgeted in (previous month). This will become a part of the Available to Budget number for the next month.