Available Amount and Real Life Dollars

I am trying to understand how my available amount translates to real life. If the account balances are “off” and I’ve just moved money from available to envelopes to bring them up to zero before the next fill it feels like I am just going through the motions, moving around dollars for the sake of getting the envelopes to look green. There is still no actual relevance to the money I have in the bank. I am hoping that during my next call with Tiffany she can help me understand how to get the envelopes to reflect actual money available and spent. Thank you.

Sorry for the frustration!

Your Available money is generally the money you’re tracking in all of your Goodbudget Accounts minus what you’ve filled into your Envelopes.

If your Account balances are off, as in they don’t match what you have in real-life, then Available will also not be correct. As such, I’d recommend manually updating your ‘Current Balances’ so that your Account are accurate.

Once you’ve done that, what’s in Available should represent what you have “available” to budget with in your Envelopes.

Hope that helps!

Hi Karisa: the confusion is all my fault not Goodbudget’s! I have updated my account balances. The only deviation from reality is that I am showing a payoff (full payoff) of my credit card account from checking (an account transfer) bec


ause the credit card statement came out today and I would like the checking account balance to remain consistent with amounts already spent. Unfortunately, that shows me in the red. Other than starting to read up on how to create a cushion in my budget are there any other tips you can share?

Sorry for my delay! In terms of getting your Available out of the red, the only other option you might consider is un-filling some of your Envelopes so that your Available is closer to zero. Then, you’d fill them as you receive more income throughout the month. Hope that helps!