Allocating Income

Manual Money Flows

Often, you have a need to "take" money from one expense and "apply" it to another. In MoneyWell this is called a money flow. You may be in the habit of reaching for the credit card in this case, but please don't. Credit cards take away your control and hand it over to some large financial institution that loves to collect your revolving interest.

Life throws you curve balls all the time. Your car breaks down and you need to get it towed to the shop or a tooth cracks and a dentist is needed. You probably didn't plan to spend that money this month and you may not have even planned enough to have money that rolled over from previous months. Instead of going into debt, flow money from one of your other buckets and cut back on that expense this month. Creating a money flow is very simple.

1. Click and hold the mouse button down over the top of the bucket that you are taking money from
2. Drag that bucket over the top of bucket you are giving money to
3. Release the mouse button
4. When the New Money Flow panel appears, enter an amount to move
5. Click Add to add this new money flow

When you look at your buckets, you should see the source bucket showing less money left to spend (it should be missing the exact amount you entered in the Money Flow Panel) and the destination bucket has been filled with the same amount.

You have just reallocated your money and dodged a debt pothole. Now you'll have less to spend in one area of your life, but you won't owe anyone that amount.

Conclusion

Your goal is to train yourself to be prepared for unexpected events and to stop looking at that bank balance for your spending money. That bank balance doesn't give you the right to spend money any more than having extra checks in your drawer means you can write more checks.

MoneyWell gives you the flexibility flow your money around your spending plan. It's not a rigid budget, but it does require discipline. You have to allocate your income when you get it and check your buckets before you spend. If you do this, you will find the freedom that comes from being in control of your spending.