Comments on: The (Crazy Simple) “Bucket” Budget

By: J. Money

J. Money — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 22:37:08 +0000

Awesome!! I’m sure you’ll do great :)

By: Nikki

Nikki — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 17:17:51 +0000

Thanks..July 5th I will be starting this simple bucket budget! I am soo excited to see how it is going to work for me!

By: J. Money

J. Money — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 18:31:25 +0000

I’m glad you like the site! And you found this post helpful! :) It’s really up to you on how to divide it up, and if you want to create separate accounts or not (some people like doing that across diff. banks, while others (like me) like to have these separate accounts at the SAME bank for ease of use), but either way you can tweak and change as time goes on. You can also automate it if you think it’ll help or manually do it each paycheck too – just depends on your comfort levels and what’s easiest for you. Good work getting started on this though and TAKING ACTION!! That’s usually the hardest part :)

By: Nikki

Nikki — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 13:01:55 +0000

I know I’m late on this one but I just got hooked to your website literally last night! I love this post…I would like to apply it to my finances. I bring in $1550 a month after taxes and ins. My rent and bills are, we’ll say $900, I will assume this should be checking acct #1, right? (I have included public transportation into that amount as well) so that leaves me with $650. So I should at least put $100 a month into a savings account and the remaining $550 should go into checking acct #2 ? Am I right? If so, how should I start that? Is it smart to do all of this with one bank or separate the accounts at different banks?

By: J. Money

J. Money — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 18:51:57 +0000

Yup, I think 4 or 6 times. But with this budget you only put money in once per paycheck so it wouldn’t affect it here ;) All the xfering/paying/etc comes from the other two accounts which are Checking.

By: Rachel

Rachel — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 18:25:28 +0000

Isn’t there a limit in the US as to how many times a year you can make a withdrawal from your savings account? I think I read over on Ramit’s blog that the limit was 6 times. If that’s right, this concept seems like it wouldn’t work that well.

By: J. Money

J. Money — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 01:46:00 +0000

yeah, i used to lump most of it together too (some still are, but not all of them) and you’re right in that it makes a HUGE difference mentally accounting for the $ than seeing them in separate accounts. I just wish all banks had that ING setup where you can keep creating sub-savings accounts to easily create the different funds :) I bet that alone would help people budget easier!

By: Jenna

Jenna — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 17:04:49 +0000

I am way too much of a control freak and numbers geek to budget at that high level! But I think this would be great for those who have avoided budgeting if they thought it was too complex. I do use separate accounts, especially with my savings so that I can keep the emergency fund separate from things like vacation savings. If you’re going for simplicity, it’s so much easier to see your balance at a glance than having everything in one account and not knowing how much you have left for household expenses versus “fun money.” However, there are some things I need to do to my own budget to make it more automated, so this is a good reminder. :-)

By: J. Money

J. Money — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 23:10:05 +0000

Haha…. that’s how you roll, baby! Keep workin’ it as long as it keeps workin’ for you ;)

By: C.M.C.

C.M.C. — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 14:39:16 +0000

Incidentally, this is the EXACT budget I follow. I didn’t know it had a “creator,” because I’ve been using it for about five years, but I have one slight difference in mine: I use Checking Account #2 as my dedicated expenses account. So, as soon as my paycheck is direct-deposited into Checking Account #1, I have two auto-transfers set-up to move money I dedicate for saving into the Savings Account and to move money for bills or committed expenses into Checking Account #2. This all happens before I even see my account balances.
My debit card is linked to Checking Account #1, because whatever is left in that account is my “allowance” or my weekly miscellaneous spending account. It’s for any unexpected expenses. I try my hardest to NOT spend any of it and let it build up as an almost-emergency fund.
My bills are set to automatically be paid out of Checking Account #2.

And that’s how I budget!