## important notes:
- each month is its own entity. a new month clones the previous month, but has no connections to it. so editing bills, adding/removing payouts and etc. only affects the month at hand. so there needs to be quick ways to add, remove, and edit line items
## what feels off:
- "BALANCE AFTER CORE SPEND" at top left is redundant when monthly ledger (same column) has the same number both at the top and bottom. would be better served as "NET BALANCE" --> same amount as top right of LUXURY ALLOWANCE ($ left)
- INCOME & ESSENTIALS is its own horizontally-divided section, rather than a "paycheck block." the proposed visual model doesn't work well on repeat (>1 block per month). i would much prefer the entire "INCOME & ESSENTIALS" block to be fully encapsulated in a rounded rectangle with distinctive styling, to give the feeling that it lives at one or more certain points in the timeline. i would also prefer that it has a label like "{MONTH} PAY PERIOD #{N} - APR 1", where the "#{N}" is ommitted if there's only one.
- "completed" checkboxes being in the bills section. the bills section is meant to be entirely for management of bill properties and status, not checking for completion/payment status. checkboxes belong in the ledger, because they apply to any line item that should manually transpire - not just bills. additionally, the bills section will be on a secondary screen on mobile. so valuable information would be tucked away if the checkboxes were there.
- it may be untraditional, but i prefer to have the PAID status closer to the DESCRIPTION. where it is now, there's a lot of visual noise and space between the name of the thing (DESC)->(ASSOCIATED CHARGE)->(ROLLING BALANCE)->(PAID?). this is why i have the paid status beside the description, in the original spreadsheet. maybe in this app, it makes sense to put PAID between DATE and DESCRIPTION?
## what's missing:
- paychecks: nowhere to edit and define paycheck qty, dates, and amounts
- bills should support a dimmed inline subtitle for denoting their purpose or originator, i.e. 'Car' beside 'Insurance', or 'AT&T' beside 'Internet'
- INCOME & ESSENTIALS is missing the 'Other' line item or equivalent. this is a catchall for smaller, non-noteworthy purchases that took place between paycheck reception and orchestration of the month's bill plan. this may sound similar to the "MISC SPEND" section, but the difference with 'Other' is that it's meant to affect the core ledger BEFORE bills are factored in.
- unclear where or how bill details are input and edited
- nowhere to view outstanding credit balances/loan balances (sec. 1.1 & 1.2). the balance amounts would ideally be itemized, inline with their respective bills in the bills list. so outstanding amt beside Capital One, outstanding amt beside Discover, outstanding amount beside car loan.
- nowhere to evaluate net credit debt/loan debt (sec. 1.1 & 1.2). i don't want to wear these on my sleeve per se, but they are useful to know and see for goals orientation.
- i see no way of adding/removing priority aux payouts (before paycheck block and bills) or notable aux payouts (after paycheck block and bills) on the fly
- seemingly no way to override bill amounts or dates. this is valuable because i.e. i might have a grace period on a credit card payment (want to zero it out for the month), but don't want that "ephemeral" override to carry to the next month.
## new useful features:
- want to be able to add a comment to specific line items. would ideally look like inline dimmed text beside the description text, with possible [tap/hover]-for-marquee on longer comments. i previously used the Description field this way for any aux payments, where i could fit their names into the "ID" column. or sometimes i would override bill descriptions to have more detail. so this would serve the equivalent function.
- some MISC SPEND items should be marked as recurring and should transfer upon creation of a new month plan (i.e. subscriptions), while some should be ephemeral and only live in their own month.
  - aux payouts should always be treated as ephemeral
- ability to "disable" MISC SPEND line items, such that their amount will be discounted without removing them from the list. useful for actively playing with combinations of items and see how the total is affected. can help me formulate purchasing decisions
- "timeline" view, where all money events are sorted by date in the ledger with no grouping (bar the paycheck block(s))
- mentally, i always prioritze leaving a $300 "buffer" on the net balance. this is one way i guard against surprise expenses putting me in the red. so it would be nice to have an actual 'buffer' feature, where the set buffer amount is displayed beneath the NET BALANCE as either "${buff_amt} BUFFER: OK" or "${buff_amt} BUFFER: OVER BY ${amt}"
- i apply modular rules to my freeform bills (namely, credit card payments). i imagine this as a priority system + some math rules:
  - the higher priority credit card (long term goal, pay down to $0) must always receive {min_payment}+$200
  - the lower priority credit card (actively used for monthly expendiature) should receive no more than {min_payment}+500
  - after those rules, any remaining amount out of {NET BALANCE}-{BUFFER} goes to the higher priority credit card
  - side note: this means that most of my MISC SPEND technically comes out of the lower priority credit card. but i haven't cared to capture that distinction in the spreadsheet, as it would have added too much complexity. this leaves a good chunk of my financial habits obscured from the bill plan.