Please read this article if you want to learn what Autonomous Envelopes are and how to create them.
This article will be a deep dive into Autonomous Envelopes, how and when they are funded and how to set the priority for funding Autonomous Envelopes.
Funding of an Autonomous Envelope
Autonomous Envelopes are funded when you have Autopilot enabled. The funding amount is set up when you create the Autonomous Envelope but you can change the funding amount at any time. The amount set is the total monthly amount you would like funded into this Envelope each month. Autopilot will continue to fund the account when there are sufficient funds available after an income split.
When is the first time the account is funded?
Autopilot will fund the Autonomous Envelope when a deposit gets split by Autopilot based on the priority set below. When you recalibrate Autopilot after you have created an Autonomous Envelope, it will also use the funding priority explained below.
Priority for the Autonomous Envelope
Autonomous Envelopes are funded based on their funding priority. You can long press and drag the Autonomous Envelope to change the priority. The top one will be the first one to get funded after Bills, Emergency and Subscriptions and before Vault and Cash. See this as a waterfall effect that funds buckets, when the bucket is full it will flow into the next one.
The complete funding priority order when a deposit is split by Autopilot is:
Bills and Subscriptions Envelopes are funded first.
Then your Vault is funded
By default, this is 10% of your deposit but you can choose your own percentage.
Your Autonomous Envelope(s) get funded, if you have multiple Autonomous Envelopes, then you can set your own priority.
Then Autopilot will try and allocate approximately 11% of your deposit to the Emergency Envelope.
Lastly, your Cash Envelope will have the remainder. This should truly be your guilt-free cash.
When you recalibrate Autopilot
After recalibration, Autopilot will move funds around and split based on the same waterfall logic as above, but with some minor differences. From highest funding priority to lowest funding priority.
Bills and Subscriptions
For Bills we look at what still needs to be allocated based on the date the bill should be paid (This is set up in Itemized Billing) and how much we have allocated to that bill thus far
E.g. If your payment schedule is weekly, we look at upcoming bills in the next 7 days. If there is a bill for $10 and we have already allocated $7, we will then only allocate $3 to it after the calibration. We do not want to allocate to bills that were already covered with a previous split.
Vault Envelope
For Vault we only include the balance in the recalibration if the balance in Vault is less than $30. If the balance was higher than $30 we try and allocate 10% or your chosen percentage.
Autonomous Envelope(s)
These get funded, if you have multiple Autonomous Envelopes, then you can set your own priority.
Emergency Envelope
Approximately 11% will go into Emergency.
Cash Envelope
Any remaining funds in the waterfall will be moved to your Cash account.