How do I account for retirement income coming from bank savings in my spending plan?

Kyokusui

I am in semi-retirement, and currently spend more monthly than I have in actual income. I like seeing the available amount at the bottom of the spending plan overview which I'd like to use to control what I spend on discretionary items as I get towards the end of the month. The problem is this amount goes negative and indicates I have overspent when I get to the final week of the month. I don't really consider that I have overspent, since I plan on spending $3,000 from savings every month. I could set a custom amount for income every month, but I don't think that would work well as I do have variable income from several sources, and what I really want to see for income is all my variable income plus a fixed $3,000 per month. I see the ability to add a manual transaction to income that isn't a real transaction from any account. Would this be the best way or is there some better alternative?

Coach Natalie

@Kyokusui, thanks for reaching out!

Based on your description, I'd say that setting a Custom Income amount in the Spending Plan is most likely your best bet. You can edit the custom amount as the month goes on to account for your variable income plus the fixed $3000. This method would certainly keep your Spending Plan from becoming overspent and would avoid having Recurring Income setup that doesn't ever actually get linked to a transaction.

https://help.simplifimoney.com/en/articles/5528672-how-do-i-set-a-custom-income-amount-in-the-spending-plan

I'd personally handle it this way if it were me. I hope this helps!

-Coach Natalie

DannyB

Hi @Kyokusui

This is an interesting question and I will bookmark this thread to see what ideas others present and what you finally end up doing.

Off the top of my head, I think I would set up an automatic monthly transfer from the savings account to my main cash account for $3000. As a result, the transaction will show up under "Transfers & Credit Card Payments" in "Income after bills & savings" section of the Spending When setting up the recurring transfer make sure you select to make it visible in the Spending Plan and $3000 will be added to your bottom line and the funds will be available to use for your overall spending plan and as available cash for discretionary spending throughout the month.

Kyokusui

Unfortunately I can't do the approach you suggest as my main cash account from which everything is paid is a higher yield checking account. My savings account is really a set of laddered CDs that when they mature every third month I just dump that money into the higher yield checking account to meet cash needs for the next three months.