Allocating Income

Changing Priorities

If you are working with the default buckets that MoneyWell created, all your bucket priorities will be set to "3 - Medium." This is certainly not correct. It is probably more important that you pay the mortgage and the electric bill than going out to a fancy dinner, unless of course you enjoy the outdoors or are bothered by bright lights.

In the "Expense Buckets" section, you will see a column called "Priority." This is for you to change according to your needs. You want to make sure that expenses that cannot be skipped are labeled as "1 - Highest" or "2 - High" and that expenses that may be more optional fall into the last three priorities. Let's go through and set the priorities now.

1. Change the priority of your most important buckets to "1 - Highest"
2. Find the buckets that are next in importance and set those to "2 - High" priority
3. Pick the buckets that can be allocated last and set those to "5 - Lowest"
4. Review the list and adjust any other priorities as necessary
5. Lastly, click Reflow Income to let MoneyWell reallocate the income

You will notice that the highest priority buckets now have the first allocations and the money flows down the list in the proper priority. If this looks correct, you can click Save Allocation to allocate your income.

What About the Empty Buckets?

Most people get paid more than once a month, which means that most people won't be able to cover all their expenses with one paycheck. Your first income allocation will probably leave certain buckets empty. What if a lower priority bucket still needs some cash in it? Well, you can either change the "New Flow" values manually in the Allocate Income Panel before you save the allocation or you can create a money flow by dragging one bucket to another on the Buckets List of the main window.

It's better if you adjust your allocations in this panel, but both methods will give you the same amount of money to spend.