Hello: Last month (when I spoke with Tiffany) I set a fill for the first of the month. It only fills two envelopes. When I checked today one of the envelopes was filled (the car lease) the other one wasn’t (see screen shot). What could be the reason for this?
Was the envelope at 0.00 on 10/31, or -426.21? The screenshot makes it seem like the envelope was in the red and the Fill brought it up to 0?
Hi Tiffany: it could have been in the red. Am I supposed to set all of the envelopes to 0.00 before a fill? And how do I “fix” this issue now? Is the $426.21 no longer available for me to reallocate?
If you have that much in the Available envelope, just do an Envelope Transfer between the two. After you make this month’s payment it will be back to 0.00 (not negative) so adding the $426 will refill it at next month’s first fill. If you don’t have Available funds you’ll need to move money between envelopes, again with Envelope Transfers.
I would probably change these two envelopes’ Fill instructions to Set instead of Add, since the amount doesn’t change and you always fill it from the same fixed income payment. With Set, it doesn’t matter what the balance is on Fill day, it will do whatever it takes to make the envelope match the amount you’ve told it to target.
I only use Add for envelopes that I may want to keep building up, like medical expenses that come sporadically, or those that I may flex like entertainment, where I might “borrow” from next month for a splurge today.
Hope that makes sense!
I went back to the two fills and was able to get the “Set” to stick. My account balances are still messed up because I was logging all expenses under my checking account up to October 22nd when we set up the Credit Card account. I’m looking forward to discussing how to reconcile so that available better matches account balances.
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