I have a large negative unallocated - presumably because I have 2x overdrafts and a credit card I’m trying to pay off, which is why I’ve started using goodbudget, to help with that.
The math just doesn’t add up for me. All my envelopes are assigned from my latest paycheck (which got deposited into my main check account, which is in overdraft) and so I understand my overdraft / negative account balances but when I add my negative account balances it’s only about half of the negative unallocated - how do I understand or figure out what’s unallocated. Should I be allocating my overdraft amounts to some kind of paying off negative envelope?
Also . why won’t it let me put a credit card with a negative balance that I’m trying to pay off under “Credit Cards” - I still need to use this card for certain online payments that only take credit cards, even though it has a negative balance and I’m making a monthly payment to it I’m forced to (re)use some of that payment but goodbudget doesn’t appear to allow you to use a credit card unless it has a zero or positive balance, it moves it automatically under “Debt” which disallows transactions other than “Debt Transactions” which in turn don’t allow you to associate them to envelopes.
There are a few things happening here so I’ll do my best to help out!
Firstly, the Unallocated balance should never be negative, although in the case of overdrafts I can see how it might be. You would need to move money out of other envelopes back to Unallocated to make up the difference and clear the overdraft.
It sounds like your overdrafts are essentially debts; is that accurate? If so you can set up a debt envelope to clear those out. If instead they were repaid immediately, the fix will be wholly in adjusting your other envelopes.
The credit card won’t put you into negative Unallocated, but you’re correct that it won’t allow you to spend while you’re paying it off. That’s a nuance of Goodbudget that many of us have asked to be revised, but for the moment it requires a workaround (several are listed in recent posts). It (and any other debts) will show a positive balance though, as the system knows that is money OWED and calculates accordingly. A negative balance on a credit card reflects a credit.
That’s a lot and I hope it helps. Glad to expand on any part that doesn’t make sense or is unclear!
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Thank you Tiffany. I went back through my entire history and removed everything I’d “allocated” to “unallocated” and reworked my transactions since onboarding and now it all makes sense, and I put the negative overdraft balances into “overdraft payment” envelopes for me to pay off against. Took a bit of time and effort but makes much more sense and everything is allocated, good or bad, for me to view and action.
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