#TipTuesday: Using Planned Spending and Watchlists to budget
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Coach Nicole
Administrator, Moderator admin
We frequently get asked, "What's the difference between Watchlists and Planned Spending 🤔?"
If you're familiar with Simplifi, the first and most significant difference you'll notice is that they're independent features within Simplifi. This means they do not communicate with each other. Planned Spending is a function of the Spending Plan, whereas Watchlists are their own feature entirely. However, you can use both to help you budget. You're probably wondering how right? Let me show you how I do it--
Like many Simplifi users, I like to budget my groceries total. As a family of four with two growing boys, our monthly grocery bill is typically around $600. Add inflation to the mix, and we're almost hitting $700 a month. I know I want to try to spend less than $600 a month, but I also know it's just not possible some months. So, I use Planned Spending to set aside enough money in my Spending Plan to cover what I expect to spend for the month, with a buffer amount to cover the unexpected items I inevitably need. Doing this ensures I have enough money during the month.
Since the amounts fluctuate monthly, I use a Watchlist to ensure that I stick to an average of $600 monthly over an extended period. This is extremely helpful since some months are much lower and others are much higher. I also use Watchlists to monitor how much I spend at specific stores using the Payee option.
For example, I noticed I was spending more money at one store than others, so I created a Watchlist for that specific Payee. As a result, I could see how much I've spent on average over the last few months, and boy, let me tell you how eye-opening it was 👀. It turns out I may have a Costco problem 🤦🏻♀️. Buying in bulk isn't always the cheapest route--lesson learned! However, once I realized how much I was spending there, I could make conscious decisions on what I was purchasing and where. I'm happy to report I'm only making one Costco trip a week now 😂!
I'd love to hear from you on how you use Planned Spending vs. Watchlists!
If you're familiar with Simplifi, the first and most significant difference you'll notice is that they're independent features within Simplifi. This means they do not communicate with each other. Planned Spending is a function of the Spending Plan, whereas Watchlists are their own feature entirely. However, you can use both to help you budget. You're probably wondering how right? Let me show you how I do it--
Like many Simplifi users, I like to budget my groceries total. As a family of four with two growing boys, our monthly grocery bill is typically around $600. Add inflation to the mix, and we're almost hitting $700 a month. I know I want to try to spend less than $600 a month, but I also know it's just not possible some months. So, I use Planned Spending to set aside enough money in my Spending Plan to cover what I expect to spend for the month, with a buffer amount to cover the unexpected items I inevitably need. Doing this ensures I have enough money during the month.
Since the amounts fluctuate monthly, I use a Watchlist to ensure that I stick to an average of $600 monthly over an extended period. This is extremely helpful since some months are much lower and others are much higher. I also use Watchlists to monitor how much I spend at specific stores using the Payee option.
For example, I noticed I was spending more money at one store than others, so I created a Watchlist for that specific Payee. As a result, I could see how much I've spent on average over the last few months, and boy, let me tell you how eye-opening it was 👀. It turns out I may have a Costco problem 🤦🏻♀️. Buying in bulk isn't always the cheapest route--lesson learned! However, once I realized how much I was spending there, I could make conscious decisions on what I was purchasing and where. I'm happy to report I'm only making one Costco trip a week now 😂!
I'd love to hear from you on how you use Planned Spending vs. Watchlists!
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Comments
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I'm still pretty new to Simplifi, but after reading a bit about the two features and playing around with them, I'm starting to see the Spending Plan as my hopes and dreams for my money and the Watchlist as the reality.
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Some great ideas for how to use these two key features @Coach Nicole
For me the Watchlists is my "30,000ft" high level overview of my budget whereas my Spending plan is the "500ft" low level view of my budget. With my Watchlist I capture and report spending in my 8 top level categories but my Spending plan shows me my day-to-day inflow and outflow across all categories. My Watchlist is pretty much a fixed number - We have an income of $X and that income is divided up among the categories that make up our living expenses and priorities. On the other hand, my Spending plan is more flexible and is where we work out our actual spending and adjusting of priorities day-to-day, week-to-week and month-to-month.
[corrected tag]Danny
Simplifi user since 01/22
”Budget: a mathematical confirmation of your suspicions.” ~A.A. Latimer1
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