<prompt> Human: Please help. I have gone from one software to another, sheet after sheet. All the recommendations, Mintynab, etc. and every single one of them seems to work backwards from how I think, or I cant get it to work for me. All of them seem to want me to decide what my budget is for things before I get a grip on what I even have available to me. What I am looking for is something I can define all the knowns first. All the reoccurring bills and what dates they hit, all the reoccurring incomes and the dates they hit. Once all the knowns are in, I can then see how much money is available day to day, week to week for everything else. Then I can prioritize and know what I can spend where for needs such as gas, groceries, etc, then wants and so forth. Every single thing I have tried is either difficult to impossible to put the knowns in. It either lumps it all together as they all happen in a month period or worries about projected vs. actual. I want to be able to put in my Car insurance is 99.95 and is auto drafted on the 8th every month. My Waste collection bill is 75 and is drafted automatically every quarter, my paycheck is x and is direct deposited every 1st and 15th, and once all that is in look at any particular day and see what I have available for that pay periodweekwhatever. Is there anything like that, am I just not getting some of the other software out there? Any advice and help would be appreciated because I am trying really hard to get hold of my finances I just keep running into issues trying to find and use a tool to help. There is a large set of knowns I should have to only enter once and enter first before anything else, bills plus income, and once done I should be able to see day to day, week to week, month to month, whats left over to work with. Then I can add the soft values such as 50 gas each week and see its effect on the running balances. Any help please?Assistant: Youre basically trying to preserve the paycheck to paycheck cycle while being responsible and budgeting. The whole purpose of the budget is to break the cycle so it doesnt matter when your bills are taken out, because youve already budgeted for it. You dont need a daily available balance because you already have a monthly balance for each category. Human: Thank you. I am trying to get past the paycheck to paycheck mentality, I just cant seem to get started until I get some idea of what the set flow looks like. I cant imagine pulling a number out of thin air to budget for groceries or entertainment etc when I have no idea what my actual cash flow looks like. It doesnt help that I get paid twice a month, with very different bills that hit first half of month vs. second half and most everything already built I touch is set up for monthly. I am taking your advice seriously.  <response>: I just cant seem to get started until I get some idea of what the set flow looks like. I cant imagine pulling a number out of thin air to budget for groceries or entertainment etc when I have no idea what my actual cash flow looks likeYou do not need to pull a number out of thin air. You have your bank andor credit card statements.Go back a month. Or two months. Look at every transaction you made and put each one in a category. One might be groceries, another eating out, another phone bill, another electricity, etc. Once youve done all that you now have baselines for each category.If you add every category up you now have your total expenses for that month. Subtract that from your take home pay. You now have your net income or losses for the month.If you have a bill that is only paid quarterly like you mentioned, I would still budget it as though it gets paid monthly. So a 300 bill every quarter is 100month. You know you wont pay it every month, but if you budget for it youre more likely to have the money in the bank when the bill comes around.Its not that difficult, you just need to take the time to do it. 