Thursday, December 10, 2020

Reconciliation: Budget Vs. Bank Book

I recently recognized some discrepancies between my budget and bank book. At the time I wrote this strip, I had about 10 months worth of transactions to review. 

Like that time I took out $20? It was actually $100.

On my budget spreadsheet I split my transactions into separate categories. Say I spent $25 at the gas station. This would be broken down into $15 for gas, $5 for lottery, and $5 for groceries. I also have the "keep the change" feature on my account, so any non-exact dollar amount has to be rounded and the difference marked as savings.

There's also the big issue of windfalls, namely the $1,200 stimulus. I tried to keep it on a separate sheet to not mix it into my budget, but because it's in the same account, any untracked spending ends up reflecting on the bank book. I had to put the unspent amount into my budget to reconcile with the bank book. I hope to avoid a similar situation when I get my annual bonus.

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