When the pocket-money spreadsheet stops keeping up
A spreadsheet, one column per child, one row a week. It works for a long time. Then two places turn up where it stops keeping up. Those two are what batzenbox is for.
What a spreadsheet is good at
Quite a lot, honestly. It costs nothing, it belongs to you, and everything in it is there at a glance. For the first few months you need nothing else. Anyone starting today with one column per child is doing fine.
The first place: the interest
Interest is worked out again every week, on the amount that was there the week before. In a spreadsheet that means a chain of formulas across every week. It holds up until you correct an old week. Everything after it would have to move too. Nothing moves in a cell that has been typed over.
The second place: the years
A spreadsheet shows weeks. It doesn't show how the split has shifted over the years. Does a child save more than two years ago? Has the gifting quietly stopped? The numbers are all there, spread across four hundred rows. For the answer, you add them up by hand.
| Pot | Year 1 | Year 5 |
|---|---|---|
| Payout | 40% | 20% |
| Saving | 30% | 45% |
| Investing | 20% | 25% |
| Gifting | 10% | 10% |
What batzenbox does instead
The history holds only what actually happened: a week, one amount per pot, a date. The interest isn't stored anywhere. The app works it out from the history every time. Correct a week from eight months ago and the figures after it settle again. On their own.
What stays the same
You still decide each week how the pocket money is split. batzenbox suggests nothing. It counts to the Rappen, and that's all. What the spreadsheet got right stays.
Read on
Start with this week.
batzenbox is the pocket-money notebook for your family: one amount per pot each week. Set up your family, put in the first week.
Built by a family in Switzerland that uses it every week. Name and address are in the legal notice.