Allowance

Standard and Advanced Budget

There are two ways to decide on an allowance:

Standard: This is a simple "Top Down" way to get started. You pick an amount for each Expense Category and plug in the numbers.

Advanced Budget: This is a more detailed "Bottom Up" approach. You can build a full Budget, adding specific items to each expense category, while letting the system do all the math.

The Standard Approach

The Allowance tab is at the top of the Bank Accounts/Allowance window.

You'll see a set of Expense Categories with the same names as the Bank Accounts.

Bank Accounts are directly connected to Expense Categories: for every Expense Category, there is one Bank Account. By having different Bank Accounts, it's easier to set reasonable family rules. As just a couple of examples:

• clothing money can only be spent on clothes, or transferred to sharing or long term savings

• Recreation funds can be spent on absolutely anything, no questions asked (unless it breaks a different family rule, like no ice cream just before dinner

Adding/Deleting/Editing Account Names

Use these tools to delete or change the names of Expense Categories. The related Bank Account names will change as well.

1) Change the name of any account.

2) Click Save when done.

Enter the allowance

1) Just plug in weekly dollar amounts.

2) Once you're happy with the numbers, click Save.

Everything's editable. You can always change anything at a future date once you're more familiar with the system.

The Advanced Budget

If you'd like to develop a more detailed budget, click on the Advanced Budget link to bring up the Budget tool.

This can be a very useful tool to help you think about what spending you're already doing that you'd like to shift into your child's hands.