Budgeting installments and credit
An installment is a bill with a date on it — and in a zero-based budget it deserves the same treatment: its own envelope, planned before the money moves. Credit is the one number on this page that deserves a rule, not just a job.
The installment is a fixed job
Car loan, phone plan, the sofa you are paying off: each installment gets an article sized at the monthly payment. The envelope holds the payment, not the debt balance — the schedule does the rest.
Extra payments, only when planned
Paying an installment early is a transfer decision made in an open month — money moved from another envelope, visibly, with a record. That is how extra payments work here: deliberately, and never by accident.
The credit-card rule
A credit card is not income. The rule that keeps a zero-based budget honest: a card payment is a bill with its own envelope, and card spending is recorded against the envelope of the thing you bought — never against the card itself.
See the whole month
Loans, phone plans, credit cards: the envelope that retires debt on a schedule.