Money systems
The one-hour monthly money routine (and why daily tracking fails)
Automate the transfers, then review once a month. A step-by-step routine with a sample payday schedule for a single salary of $4,600 net.
Editor · Budgets and household systems
Nadia Okafor
Nadia spent nine years as a management accountant before starting Ballast Notes. She writes about budgets, sinking funds and the monthly routines that keep a two-income household from drifting.
Stories by Nadia
Budgeting
Sinking funds: how to stop being surprised by bills you knew were coming
Car services, birthdays and annual renewals are not emergencies. A simple sinking-fund system turns them into a single predictable monthly transfer.
Debt and borrowing
Avalanche or snowball? One household's debts, run both ways
We ran a fictional couple's three debts through both payoff methods, month by month. The gap was smaller than the online arguments suggest.