How do you personally manage your cashflow?

Question

I have several sporadic income streams that make it tricky to predict how much money is coming in each month. But I have pretty standard fixed expenses (rent, phone, internet, insurance) and some variable expenses (food, entertainment, gifts, etc).I sometimes struggle to smooth out my inflows to match my outflows (and to make sure I have enough money in the right accounts so that everything works). Curious to hear about how this community manages their money. Do you use a specific app or tool? Or budget methodology that you've really got working for you?

orzig · Accepted Answer

I used a SaaS app called You Need a Budget (often abbreviated YNAB). It did not make sense for my situation, but seems perfect for yours. The two primary ideas it is organized around our:
1) Try to only spend money that is “more than 30 days old“ which is a little bit artificial, since money is fungible, but the Age of Money metric makes more sense than monthly net income if you are inflows are lumpy.
2) Easy divide money into dozens of little “accounts“ each of which you can track against a goal. It is pretty easy to keep in a rhythm of filling up the needC–to–have accounts before the nice– to–have accounts.

JoeAltmaier · Answer

My wife manages all that. She's been pretty reliable for 30 years now.