Why doesn't my bank balance match my budget?

Because your bank shows one number — what has already cleared — and your budget shows two: what has cleared, and what you have already promised to somebody else. The difference between them is committed money, and until it is written down somewhere, your bank balance will keep looking like spending money that it isn't.

Last updated: October 2026

What is committed money?

Committed money is everything you have effectively already spent but haven't paid yet. The rent that comes out on Monday. The electricity bill sitting on the kitchen bench. The phone plan that debits on the 28th. The groceries you will certainly buy before the next pay, because you will certainly eat.

None of it has touched your account. All of it is spoken for. And your bank, which is being perfectly honest within its own limits, shows you the number as if none of it exists.

A worked example: $1,840 that is really $528

Here is one ordinary Thursday, eleven days out from pay.

The balance on screen says $1,840.00. Subtract the $1,312.00 and the honest figure is $528.00 — and it has to last eleven days, which is about $48.00 a day.

That is a completely different financial situation to the one the banking app describes, and it's the same Thursday.

Why does this feel like being bad with money?

Because the gap does its damage at exactly the moment you're making decisions.

You check the balance on a Thursday night, see $1,840.00 and feel fine — which is not a character flaw, because every signal you were given said $1,840.00. So you say yes to the weekend thing, which is reasonable with $1,840.00 and slightly unreasonable with $528.00. Then rent clears on Monday and the comfortable feeling retroactively becomes evidence that you can't be trusted.

It wasn't a discipline failure. It was a measurement nobody had taken — the same mechanism behind why most budgets die by March.

Why doesn't my bank just do this for me?

Because it genuinely doesn't know. It can see a recurring $780.00 leaving on the first and make a reasonable guess. It cannot know you've agreed to chip in for a leaving present, that the car is due for a service, or that this fortnight has a birthday in it.

Some banks do try, with "upcoming bills" features built from your transaction history. Worth switching on — but they only catch the regular, repeating, already-seen things, which is the easy half. The hard half only exists in your head, and no app can write it down for you, because it isn't data yet.

How do I work out my own committed number?

Four minutes, once, and then about ten seconds a day.

• —Open your balance, and write it at the top of a page.
• —List every payment due before your next pay — rent or mortgage, utilities, insurance, subscriptions, school costs, loan payments.
• —Add one realistic line for the groceries and fuel you'll need to get there. Not an aspirational one.
• —Add anything you've said yes to: the gift, the ticket, the dinner.
• —Subtract the total from the balance.

Whatever is left is your real spending money until pay day. Divide it by the number of days remaining if that helps — for the example above, $528.00 across eleven days is $48.00 a day.

Your number will be different from the example, and it will be different next fortnight. The subtraction is the same every single time.

Does this mean I should keep bills in a separate account?

It's one way, and it suits a lot of people: a second account for bills, with the committed money moved across on pay day, so the spending account only ever holds spendable money.

But the account isn't what does the work — the list is. One account with an accurate list behaves identically, and a second account with no list just relocates the confusion. If you like the plumbing, use it. If not, the list alone is enough.

For the irregular costs that don't fall inside one pay cycle — rego, Christmas, the car service — the same idea extends into sinking funds.

What about pending transactions and "available balance"?

Pending transactions are the ones your card has authorised but the merchant hasn't collected yet — usually a day or two old. Most banks show an "available balance" that already accounts for them, which is why it is often a few dollars lower than the headline figure.

That's useful, and it means the available balance is always the better of the two numbers to look at. It also only reaches a day or two into the future. The $780.00 of rent due on Monday is not pending. It's just coming, and nothing on the screen knows about it yet.

Why is the gap worse on a fortnightly pay?

Because more of the month's bills have to be caught by fewer pay days, and twice a year a month contains three pays rather than two, which quietly changes which bills land in which pay cycle. If you're paid fortnightly, the committed figure is worth recalculating each pay rather than each month — the fortnightly pay cycle has its own problems, and this is one of them.

Which spreadsheet does this?

The Honest Budget Spreadsheet ($19) has a bills tab that holds the recurring list and a monthly view that puts planned and actual next to each other, so the committed figure is a line you read rather than a sum you redo. The Complete Edition ($29) adds sinking funds for the irregular costs, net worth and a percentage-of-income view.

And if you're not there yet, the free starter budget on the homepage does the subtraction above on one page. The method is the point. The spreadsheet is just somewhere to keep it.