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I've thoroughly enjoyed using Capital One's online banking for pretty much this. I have ~20 different savings accounts that I use for budgeting envelopes (you c

I've thoroughly enjoyed using Capital One's online banking for pretty much this. I have ~20 different savings accounts that I use for budgeting envelopes (you can have up to 25, I think) and each has their own routing/account numbers so you can set up services to pull directly from them and I set up automation to put $X in them from a "main" income account every 2 weeks, so I don't have to manually move money from account to account unless it's for something out of the ordinary. It effectively lets me set up envelope accounts that get automatically filled each month and automatically withdrawn from as charges happen, which is quite nice (and sounds similar to what Simple was doing?). Dunno if it helps as a straight-up Simple replacement, but it works well for me so I thought I'd give them a shout out.

SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
What are your “envelopes”/accounts and what do you actually do with them? For example if you have a groceries envelope. How does that change anything for you? Would you buy more or less food at some point? Would you rebalance it at the end of the year? Is there some calculation of I are too spent too much this week so we’re making food? I ask because I have a reasonable I does what I spend money on and it’s not really any surprise. My mortgage is x, if I owned on a car it would be y, if I’m out I buy food for the week, etc.
- drewpc 6y ago
  For example: I have 21 expenses in Simple. They're as small as "Spotify: $16.25/mo" and "1Password: $60/year". As large as mortgage, kid stuff, groceries, annual car registration, car insurance, etc. Plus about 8 savings goals.
  - SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
    Ok. I get that... but you know Spotify is $16.25/mo. Recurring. Every year you know exactly how much it will be. So I guess I just don’t really get it what that envelope is doing. Maybe making sure you don’t get double charged or price change? But... car Insurance I do get. If you get billed every six months getting that big bill out of nowhere does kind of suck.
- drusepth 6y ago
  Most of the accounts are for things that have a mostly-fixed price per month (e.g. utilities/insurance/investing that might cost more/less month-to-month, but average out to $X, which gets automatically put in them each month), or things that build up each month and get spent whenever (e.g. gifts/travel budgets that I put $X into each month, then pull from as-needed whenever it's someone's birthday or the $ is high enough to go on a trip). Plus a couple annually-withdrawn accounts for subscriptions (staggered for things that renew on different months, so I don't withdraw too many times in a single month), e.g. spotify, xbox live, notebook.ai, etc. For the more fluid day-to-day stuff that I might make "withdrawals" from multiple times a month (like groceries and random spending), I usually stick to using checking accounts (which you only get 3 of on CO, unfortunately), but yeah, I have $X put in each month and look at how much is left to get a gauge on how much to spend or not (which does make me spend more/less on food/whatever at some points). I rebalance every few months and look at whether I'm averaging more/less than I expect on each account and adjust the automatic deposits into each account accordingly, so it's mostly just a way to visualize a budget day-to-day while also making it easy to go back and see actual spending numbers month-to-month (which I also track with spreadsheets, but that's another conversation!).
  - SamBam 6y ago
    So you have a separate account for your rent, for your utilities, for your insurance, etc? If these are all roughly fixed costs, I have trouble understanding what you're gaining from this rather than having them all in one account, except additional headaches.
    - drusepth 6y ago
      Automatically filling those envelopes (setting aside that money) prevents you from accidentally spending that money and getting yourself in a bind when it comes due. It's just a digital version of physical envelopes, which people also use to make sure they don't overspend. If you look in your spending account and you have $80 left for the month, you're gonna budget around that, buy cheaper meals, hold off on purchases, etc. If you look in a singular account and it's a few thousand (covering your rent, insurance, utilities, etc that'll all get withdrawn on some day), you're a lot more likely to accidentally overspend and overdraft. If you set your money aside for expected expenses when you get it, it makes it a bit easier to know exactly how much you have left over and can actually spend (or save, or invest, etc) that month.

SV_BubbleTime 6y ago

What are your “envelopes”/accounts and what do you actually do with them? For example if you have a groceries envelope. How does that change anything for you? Would you buy more or less food at some point? Would you rebalance it at the end of the year? Is there some calculation of I are too spent too much this week so we’re making food? I ask because I have a reasonable I does what I spend money on and it’s not really any surprise. My mortgage is x, if I owned on a car it would be y, if I’m out I buy food for the week, etc.

drewpc 6y ago
For example: I have 21 expenses in Simple. They're as small as "Spotify: $16.25/mo" and "1Password: $60/year". As large as mortgage, kid stuff, groceries, annual car registration, car insurance, etc. Plus about 8 savings goals.
- SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
  Ok. I get that... but you know Spotify is $16.25/mo. Recurring. Every year you know exactly how much it will be. So I guess I just don’t really get it what that envelope is doing. Maybe making sure you don’t get double charged or price change? But... car Insurance I do get. If you get billed every six months getting that big bill out of nowhere does kind of suck.
drusepth 6y ago
Most of the accounts are for things that have a mostly-fixed price per month (e.g. utilities/insurance/investing that might cost more/less month-to-month, but average out to $X, which gets automatically put in them each month), or things that build up each month and get spent whenever (e.g. gifts/travel budgets that I put $X into each month, then pull from as-needed whenever it's someone's birthday or the $ is high enough to go on a trip). Plus a couple annually-withdrawn accounts for subscriptions (staggered for things that renew on different months, so I don't withdraw too many times in a single month), e.g. spotify, xbox live, notebook.ai, etc. For the more fluid day-to-day stuff that I might make "withdrawals" from multiple times a month (like groceries and random spending), I usually stick to using checking accounts (which you only get 3 of on CO, unfortunately), but yeah, I have $X put in each month and look at how much is left to get a gauge on how much to spend or not (which does make me spend more/less on food/whatever at some points). I rebalance every few months and look at whether I'm averaging more/less than I expect on each account and adjust the automatic deposits into each account accordingly, so it's mostly just a way to visualize a budget day-to-day while also making it easy to go back and see actual spending numbers month-to-month (which I also track with spreadsheets, but that's another conversation!).
- SamBam 6y ago
  So you have a separate account for your rent, for your utilities, for your insurance, etc? If these are all roughly fixed costs, I have trouble understanding what you're gaining from this rather than having them all in one account, except additional headaches.
  - drusepth 6y ago
    Automatically filling those envelopes (setting aside that money) prevents you from accidentally spending that money and getting yourself in a bind when it comes due. It's just a digital version of physical envelopes, which people also use to make sure they don't overspend. If you look in your spending account and you have $80 left for the month, you're gonna budget around that, buy cheaper meals, hold off on purchases, etc. If you look in a singular account and it's a few thousand (covering your rent, insurance, utilities, etc that'll all get withdrawn on some day), you're a lot more likely to accidentally overspend and overdraft. If you set your money aside for expected expenses when you get it, it makes it a bit easier to know exactly how much you have left over and can actually spend (or save, or invest, etc) that month.