Planner offers a variety of expense categories and budgets. These include Home and Real Estate, Debts, Medical Expenses, the Basic Budgeter, and the Detailed Budgeter. Planner also calculates your income tax liabilities based on the elements in your plan.
As a result, we consider your "recurring expenses" anything other than expenses you have accounted for in Home and Real Estate, Debts, Medical Expenses, and Planner computed taxes.
In order to enter your recurring expenses, select either "Basic Budgeter" or "Detailed Budgeter." Any expenses entered in these budgets should be entered in "today's dollars," and will be inflated every year in a linear fashion at the general inflation rate in your Plan.
Basic Budgeter
The Basic Budgeter allows you to enter an aggregate amount for expenses. This is the quickest option. This is a good option if you are confident in estimations of expenses.
Detailed Budgeter
The Detailed Budgeter helps you build a spending plan. In each section, you can add expenses based on frequency. You can also model two budgets that you can toggle between, these are the "Must Spend" and "Like to Spend" budgets. And, you can account for deductible expenses.
This is a good option if you are unsure of your total current expenses, want the ability to switch between two budgets, or model the impact of cutting your budget or including charitable deductions.
Please note that the "Must Spend" and "Like to Spend" budgets operate as two individual budgets. So, if your "Must Spend" grocery expense minimum is $400 per month and your "Like to Spend" is $200 more, you should enter $400 in "Must Spend" and $600 in "Like to Spend."
Once you’ve done the work in differentiating between "Must Spend" and "Like to Spend," toggling between the two budgets, or combining the pessimistic assumptions with the "Must Spend" budget and the "Like to Spend" with the optimistic budget may help you think about how you might react to an adverse financial situation. We tend to make behavioral changes at these times, and changes are easier to apply when they’ve been thought out ahead of time.