Revising Your Plan

After you have a spending plan in place, MoneyWell can give you feedback about your spending habits. The graph, for example, will show a dotted outline representing your planned amount for each month. If you go over this amount, the graph will show the overage in red hash marks.

If you want to adjust the planned amount for a bucket, you don't need to pull up the spending plan. You can change the settings for a bucket in the Bucket Detail.

1. Select a bucket from the Buckets List; the bucket detail will appear on the right side of the main window
2. Adjust the Frequency, Amount, or Timing settings in the Spending Plan section

The Money Flow Graph will immediately reflect your changes to the bucket settings. Although adjusting your spending plan in this way is convenient, you should review your overall spending plan after you finish with these individual bucket changes.

Simply click Spending Plan in the toolbar again to see you whole spending plan. Make sure you still have more money coming in than you have going out.

The Priority setting on the bucket detail is for managing your income allocation. The higher priority buckets get filled with income first. You can choose to set these now or wait until you do your first allocation.

Conclusion

Your spending plan is not a rigid budget that will never change. You will need to adjust your plan based what's happening in your everyday world. You also will need to make sure your plan has money set aside for you to enjoy yourself.

One of the biggest reasons budgets fail is because they feel oppressive. Just like you can't survive happily on a diet of bread and water, you can't live happily just paying the bills. Make sure you plan for an occasional meal out, a movie, or a night out with the kids (or without if that's more enjoyable). With MoneyWell, it's easy to keep adjusting your plan until you find one that fits your lifestyle.

A good book on this topic is How to Get Out of Debt, Stay Out of Debt & Live Prosperously by Jerrold Mundis.