We're getting ready to prepare our PTO budget for next year and as I've been looking at budget templates, I notice a lot of them balance at 0.00 - that is they have expenditures to match all of their income.
I know this probably doesn't work in practical applications - this one example I saw had a beginning checkbook balance of 12,000 so my guess is that the previous year they didn't expend all they planned (that or they had a lot of extra income!)
I'm wondering how important it is to go into the year with a budget that balances at 0. Is it okay to budget so you'll maintain 10,000 in the checking account? We try to save up for a large purchase every few years so we don't want to plan to spend everything we have - just save a little more each year until we can purchase the big item.
