When the pocket-money spreadsheet stops keeping up
We kept our kids' pocket money in a spreadsheet for years. It worked for a long time. Then two places turned up where it couldn't keep up. Those two places are where batzenbox came from.
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. We added them up by hand every time.
| Bucket | 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, four amounts, 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: four amounts a week, and the interest comes from the history. Set up your family, put in the first week. That's all it takes.
batzenbox came out of our own family. Who is behind it is in the legal notice.