Planned Spending Showing Wrong

akshaybhaskaran

I have fixed myself a budget of $7400 per month (mortgage, auto, groceries etc.).

Planned spending is -$7400 - which is understood, meaning I have $7400 to spend for the month.

Now, let's assume I have spent $400 for this month.

So, shouldn't the planned spending be showing "$7000" ? ($7400 - $400 = $7000)
Meaning I have spent $400 and I have remaining $7000 left to spend.

Instead, it shows as $7800, adding my $400 on top of $7400.

This is confusing and not a great way in my opinion

Coach Kristina

Hello @akshaybhaskaran,

To troubleshoot this issue, could you please clarify some information? How did you document this $400? Did you document this as transactions assigned to the categories that correspond to your planned spending, or did you go directly to the Planned Spending section of the Spending Plan and add an expense of $400?

If you did the latter, then it would change your planned spending by the amount of the expense that you added in (for example - in the sample image below, you can see a planned expense of $500 and a planned expense of $400, adding up to a total of $900 planned spending).

For more information on Planned Spending, and the spending plan in general, you can click this link for the web version and this link for the mobile version.

I look forward to your response!

DannyB

Hi @akshaybhaskaran Welcome to Q-Simplifi!

As @Coach Kristina mentions, more information would be helpful to troubleshoot what is happening.

In the mean time here is a summary of what you will find in the very educational and useful support articles linked above.

Your $7400 will be spread across the three planning sections of the Spending Plan.

The first section, "Income after bills & savings" is the first section and will capture your recurring income, recurring fixed expenses, any transfers that you make visible, and any contributions to your tracked savings goals. A certain amount of your $7400 is used among these expenses and deducted from your income.

What is left after your fixed expenses are deducted from the $7400 will be available for the next section, Planned Spending. In this section you can allot whatever amount you want to budget for your various flexible expenses like groceries, transportation, entertainment, etc. These are recurring monthly expenses that are paid out over the course of the month but not necessarily to the same vendor and on a variable schedule.

Simplifi will now deduct what you set aside in Planned Spending from the Income after bills and savings and show you what is left for the month out of the original $7400.

Here is my typical monthly Spending Plan:

• Income after bills& savings $4200
  • Net income $7600
  • Bills & Subscriptions -$2200
  • Included Transfers -$ 250
  • Savings Contributions -$ 980
• Planned Spending $2520 (divided up among 8 flexible spending categories)
  • Books
  • Grocery & Household
  • Gasoline
  • Eating Out
  • General Expenses
  • Other Fun Stuff
  • Medicare Part B
  • Petty Cash
• Other Spending ($????)
  • Nothing is assigned to this section. This is where any expenditures that don't fall into any of the above spending will land. Usually this will be expenses that Simplifi left uncategorized and didn't recognize as a recurring bill or subscription. These expenses will either by covered by your Available or if no available will throw you into being overspent overall.
• $1680 Available
  • This is my "bottom line" for the month. I have this much money that is not committed in one way or another in my Spending Plan. This available will be used to cover any overages in any of the fixed or flexible spending I have planned for the month.

Notes:

1. My fixed expenses fall into two groups: The first group are those bills and subscriptions that are exactly the same amount month-in-and-month-out. An example is my city utilities bill, it is the same amount every month, so no problem. The second group are those recurring expenses that vary from month-to-month. An example of this is my natural gas bill - in the summer months always below $20 but in the winter months can reach into the high $200s. The recurring reminders for these are set up for the annual average. As a result, in the summer, I won't pay out what I have set up and, in the winter, I'll pay out more than I have set up. The overage in the winter will be covered by the available and it the summer will add to the available when the bill is actually paid. Most of these variable billers I am able to use bill connect to get the recurring bill updated in my Spending Plan when it becomes available, so that is nice.
2. We seldom "overspend" in one of our Planned Spending (flexible expenses) categories. If we do I have a choice to either let available cover the overage or I can adjust spending in other Planned Spending categories to cover the overage.

The Spending Plan can be a very effective way to manage you monthly budget once you adjust to how it is set up and what I can do for you. I hope you will find this to be true for yourself also.