Budget Mate FAQ

Just like any budget, you will need details for all your bills and expenses across the year so you can allocate an accurate amount for each outgoing. You’ll also need income, bank account balance and credit card debt/limit details.

Everyone’s finances are different, which means everyone’s set up time will be different. The more organised you are, the quicker it will be.

We recommend preparing a list of your bills and outgoings – once you enter these your Budget Plan is ready.
These entries will also form the basis of how Budget Mate disperses your income, so accuracy here is important and will save you time later.

Budget Mate has been tried and tested by us. If you follow the system we recommend, we know it can help you reduce your debt and increase your savings.

It is also easy to use. It has a unique feature that automatically disperses your income across your pre-set outgoings, saving you time and eliminating the chance of data entry errors.

There are two Budget Mate subscriptions available. The Basic subscription is free and allows you to create and use up to 10 expense accounts.

The Premium subscription gives you the flexibility to create unlimited expense accounts.

You can trial the Premium subscription for 30 days for free. After that, the subscription is $10 per month – roughly the same as two cups of coffee. Or, you can revert to the basic free subscription.

No, we are not financial advisers. We only offer general recommendations. It’s up to you to decide whether these are right for your financial situation. If you’re unsure, you should consider consulting a financial adviser.

This indicates you are spending more than you earn.

If your system is reducing your debt and growing your savings, you probably don’t need to change.
But, if you’re not seeing the progress you’d like, Budget Mate is easy to set up and FREE to trial for 30 days. Why not give it a go?

If your Budget Mate ‘Available Amount’ does not match your bank account balance, there are a few possible reasons.

It could be a simple typing error, so go back over your entries to double check them first.

Another reason could relate to how the credit card system works.

Every credit card purchase is set as an authorisation only on your credit card statement, which lasts around 3-4 days. If the business you’ve paid doesn’t do their banking before the authorisation period finishes, the information on the credit card statement will disappear. (This changes the card’s debt and available amounts as if the purchase never happened.)

Just make a note of the difference.Your account should balance once the company completes their banking.

Once you have allocated the required amount to cover all your bills and expenses, the balance can be allocated to your savings.

For example, if you have $230.00 left after meeting your bills and expenses, you can opt to save as much of this as you like. We recommend keeping a minimum of $20 to $50 in your Spare Money account for expense increases.

With the Budget Mate system, it’s very easy to identify spare money in an expense account after a bill has been paid. When you’re trying to pay down your debt, we recommended allocating any spare money you have towards your highest interest charging debt.

Every person’s budget is different, but budget priorities are usually expenses that relate to essential items. For example, mortgage or rent payments, food shopping, fuel or utilities would be classed as budget priorities. Holidays or entertainment would not usually be considered priority items.

There will always be unforeseen expenses, which is why we have a small amount of spare money allocated to our budget plan. If more money is required to pay an unforeseen expense, you can use a non-priority expense account to pay it, e.g. holiday, savings etc.

For financial success using Budget Mate, a good rule to follow is, ‘if I don’t have the cash for my purchase, I cannot afford it’. After all, you are trying to manage your finances and avoid paying credit card interest.

The beauty of using Budget Mate is you can easily see your financial position. And you can predict how long it will take to have the money for that elusive item on your wish list.

Your income may fluctuate on occasions, so we have built in a process to manually overcome this when entering different income amounts. If you don’t have enough money to make up your income shortfall in your savings or spare money account – apply your income as a deposit. Then you simply move it around manually to wherever it’s most needed.

We recommend that you have one bank account that offsets your home loan and a credit card.