Looking for an askme comment about budgeting.

September 1, 2010 9:14 AM

I'm looking for an AskMe comment about budgeting. The commenter described a budgeting system in which all income was immediately paid into a category, so the final balance was $0.

I believe it was called something like line budgeting?

I realize this is an awful description and I should have favorited the comment.

posted by pintapicasso to MetaFilter-Related at 9:14 AM (12 comments total)

I don't know the post you're referring to, but are you perhaps thinking of the debt snowball repayment, popularised by Dave Ramsey?
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 9:23 AM on September 1, 2010

Speculating, but your desired answer might be among these answers, perhaps this one?
posted by cgc373 at 9:29 AM on September 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

cgc373, that's it. I'm amazed. Thanks so much!
posted by pintapicasso at 9:31 AM on September 1, 2010

The link for "these answers" is broken.
posted by amethysts at 9:37 AM on September 1, 2010

Even though I loused up the first link, the second one worked. Happy to help, pintapicasso.
posted by cgc373 at 9:38 AM on September 1, 2010

The "these answers" link should say these answers; it's just supposed to go to the whole question.
posted by cgc373 at 9:41 AM on September 1, 2010

Wow. that's a cool system. i just don't know if i have the guts to try something new. new=frightening. anyway - thanks for this!
posted by Sassyfras at 10:17 AM on September 1, 2010

all income was immediately paid into a category, so the final balance was $0.

Ha! I've been doing this for 30 years -- the category is called "bills."

/oblig
posted by Devils Rancher at 10:55 AM on September 1, 2010 [3 favorites]

Not to be a wet blanket, but isn't this the whole idea between double entry accounting?
posted by geoff. at 11:05 AM on September 1, 2010

The one of Dave Ramsey's mottos is "Every dollar on paper on purpose."

I find his radio show to be wonderful.
posted by cjorgensen at 5:31 PM on September 1, 2010

This is called 'zero-based budgeting'. There's a cracking app called 'You Need A Budget' that I use. Highly recommended and there's loads of discussion of the concept (and their related one of 'buffering') on their forums.
posted by Happy Dave at 2:52 AM on September 2, 2010

I made a spreadsheet to help track this kind of budgeting. I took my monthly paycheck, subtracted my fixed expenses, divided by 30, and got a $14 base per diem. This should be all you need to change if you're on a monthly paycheck.

As you add your daily purchases/windfall into the spreadsheet, it will recalculate how much you have to spend in the following days: what's left from one day is spread across the remaining days in a month. At the last day of the month, you will know how much you have to move to savings.
posted by emilyd22222 at 5:28 PM on September 3, 2010