Budgeting

Created Friday 30 December 2022 using Buckets version 0.68

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Budgeting is important to manage income and expenses. The budgeting strategy I use is to give every pound has a job, categorised into “buckets”. I use Buckets on the desktop to create and manage my budget. As I spend money, it is taken from a bucket. Examples of buckets include:

• Fixed expenses
• Food
• Days out
• Eating out
• Technology
• Children
• etc. etc.

Buckets

Buckets is a great tool to help manage your buckets and transactions. This is a desktop solution so only accessible via one computer, and data is stored in a file on your computer, so you will need to back-up. No cloud version available.

Transactions

To create a transaction, I select Transactions and complete the details. Once done, I click the tick and the software will deduct from the buckets.

What's great about this, is that I can do "maths" in the transaction box. For example, if I completed a food shop for £20 but £5 was for something else, I can type 20-5 then the software will add a new row to categorise.

To move money around the buckets, do not use the transaction page. Select Buckets and simply minus the bucket to deduct and add to increase value of the bucket.

Then, click "Make it so" button.

To ensure all buckets are balanced, look at the top left area to make sure the value is zero. If greater, you have more money to allocate, if minus you need to remove from a bucket to get back to zero again.

What's "Make it Rain"

Good question: this feature allows you to automatically assign funds to buckets. For example, if you have an income the 0.00 value will increase because it's unallocated funds. Make-it-rain will add to buckets from top to bottom depending how much you have added as a target. If it runs out, buckets at the bottom will not be fed.

Cost?

It's free however there is an antipation from the developer to purchase a one-off licence for $49 USD. There are no restrictions to the software, however you will always have a bucket at the top named "Buckets License" and a "Trial Version" yellow tag on the left-hand menu until you purchase a licence. I have been using for a month now, so once I am 100% I will purchase a licence.

More Help

This was only a taster, so if you want more read the full documentation available here.

Download

https://www.budgetwithbuckets.com/download/