Pencil in your first plan

The Plan step turns your monthly income into starting amounts for every group and category. It is a sketch of a typical month: every amount box on it is a monthly amount, and /mo shows after the box.

Steps

1. Enter an amount next to each income category under Income, such as Salary. Use what you expect to come in each month.
2. Enter the monthly amounts you know in Know any of these exactly? (optional). Good Steward estimates the rest. The card lists large fixed costs, such as housing, a car payment or child care. It is hidden if your categories have none. Select Done to collapse it.
3. Check each group's total and percent of your income. To change the share, drag the slider or enter a whole number from 0 to 100.
4. To set one category's amount, select Set amounts per category (optional) under a group and enter an amount on a row. The row shows your number with a small x. Select your number to go back to the estimate for that row. Clearing the field does the same. Select estimate · tap to keep to keep the estimate as your number.
5. If you enter an amount for every category in a group, the slider is replaced by "Every amount here is yours." and a Use the slider instead link. Select the link to clear all of that group's amounts and show the slider again. The group goes back to the percent it had before you entered its first amount, even if you changed your income since.
6. Check the bar at the bottom. Left to plan is your income minus the planned amounts. If you plan more than your income, the bar shows the amount over your income. You can still continue.
7. Select Start my budget.

How the amounts are worked out

• Each group gets its percent of your income. The starting percents come from your template. Without a template, they come from your season on About you. Without either, Generosity and Savings get 10% each and the expense groups share the other 80%.
• Inside a group, the money is divided by the typical size of each category.
• An amount you enter is kept exactly. The group's percent changes to match. The other categories in the group keep their total, with the exceptions below. Because the money is spread in whole dollars, one of them can go up $1 while another goes down $1. If the group's total has cents, the cents can move between categories. After you leave the page and come back, or select Start my budget, the saved percent can change amounts too. Good Steward remembers the percent the group had before your first amount, for Use the slider instead. If you lower the percent below the share your own amounts take, the page says, for example, "Your set amounts already take 25%."
• When a row goes back to the estimate, it gets back its earlier amount if your income and the rest of the group have not changed. Otherwise it gets a whole-dollar amount close to its share at the group's current percent, chosen so the other categories keep their amounts, and the group's percent changes to match. If no whole-dollar amount does that, one other category changes by $1. These limits apply when the group's total is whole dollars; the next two bullets cover cents. Rarely, after you move the slider, the earlier amount still matches the way the group is divided and the row gets it back instead; other categories can then change by $1.
• If your income is not a multiple of $100, or an amount you entered has cents, a group's total can have cents. Entering or clearing an amount can then move those cents to a different category, including the one you cleared, and other categories can change by more than $1.
• The page saves each group's percent to two decimal places, so a group's total can have cents even when your income is a multiple of $100. When you leave the page and come back, or select Start my budget, a group's total can change by a few cents, and the categories you did not enter can change by a few cents or a dollar.

For example, take the standard categories, no season and $5,000 of income. Generosity and Savings get 10% each ($500 each). The expense groups share the other 80% ($4,000) by the typical size of their categories: Essentials 40% ($2,000), Needs 19% ($950) and Wants 21% ($1,050). The bar shows "Left to plan: $0".

What Start my budget does

• It writes each amount into the current month and every later month through December. The line under the button names the months.
• It does not replace an expense amount that is already above $0.
• It finishes setup and opens Budget in Category view if you entered any single-category amount, including in Know any of these exactly?, and in Group view if not. Keep it simple and the Too much? link always use Group view.

If Start my budget is unavailable

The button stays unavailable until an income amount is above $0. If the page shows no income fields, your list has no income category. Select ← Back, add a category in the Income card on Review & prioritize, and select Next: plan amounts again. If there is no Income card, go back to the guided setup and select an income choice.