How Much of the Money in Your Checking Account Can You Actually Spend?

 With a cash plan you have two measures of how much you can actually spend: one for cash and one for charging.

Your weekly allowance, in an amount and on a weekday of your choice, is a scheduled removal of cash from your checking account using the money that has already been provided for in your cash plan for that purpose. You can spend your allowance knowing that the you are not taking away from the money that is needed for bills, credit cards, sinking funds, and savings. You do not plan how you will spend your allowance nor do you track how you spent it. And the comforting thing about your weekly allowance is that you are never more than six days from getting your next allowance.

For using credit cards, your cash plan shows you your net cashflow at each twice-monthly checkpoint. This is the amount left over at each checkpoint after all scheduled uses of available cash, including your allowance, have been accounted for. When your net cashflow is positive, that money is available for use with credit cards. When you charge something, then enter the charge and the covering payment in your cash plan, your net cashflow is reduced, keeping you in touch with how your use of credit cards is affecting your cash plan.

Your cash plan, in You Need A Cash Plan, makes the flow of your income through your household to spending, bills, credit cards, sinking funds, and savings visible. That visibility includes knowing at all times how much you can actually spend regardless of the balance in your checking account or when paydays happen.