Troubleshoot the Advanced Budget
Creating a
budget is the easy part; sticking to it is often more difficult.
There are several ways you can adjust your budget if you spend more
in a category than you originally planned.
Note: The steps in this task depend on whether
you're using the Essential Budget, the Advanced Budget, or the
Savings and Spending Budget. To find out which budget you're using,
look for the Essential Budget, Advanced
Budget, or Savings and Spending Budget
label in the upper-right corner of the Budget summary page.
With an Advanced Budget, you can:
- Edit the amount you have budgeted for
expenses.
Increase the budgeted amount for a category in which you have
overspent, and decrease the budgeted amount in another category to
compensate. To learn more, see the related topics below.
- Reallocate funds from a different budget period or
category.
Reallocating is like borrowing from yourself. You take money
from the same category in next month's budget, or from a different
category this month, to cover an expense in the current month. To
learn more, see the related topics below.
- Add a one-time income item to your budget.
For example, add that overtime pay you worked hard for or the
tax refund you just received. To learn more, see the related topics
below.
Notes
- When you first create a budget, it may not show the spending
limits you set for some recurring bills during the first month. For
example, if you paid rent on May 1 and you set up your budget on
May 15, your current month's budget won't show a spending limit for
rent in May, but will show one in June. If your budget doesn't look
balanced the first month, wait until next month to see if the
problem goes away on its own.
- When you delete a bill that you paid in previous months, you
will still see the old bill as an item in your budget because Money
tracks your past spending habits as well as what you're likely to
spend in the future.