Adjust negative expenses

Use Adjust negative expenses to replace negative amounts with reductions to expenses you actually plan to pay. It works with any negative expense, including entries added by CHOOSE YOUR LEGACY. Open it from the warning or the button below your EXPENSES table.

A negative expense is treated as non-taxable income in the TIME MACHINE. It does not automatically reduce your other expense entries.

Choose realistic reductions

  1. Set % Discretionary. This is the portion of each current expense you are willing to cut. Unset shares start at 100%; check that this is realistic. Enter 0% to protect the whole expense. Everyone can edit this field on this page.
  2. Click Suggest reductions for a starting point, or enter a proposed amount or reduction yourself. The reduction field, proposed amount and slider stay in sync. The essential minimum is protected. Changing an amount or percentage updates the comparison immediately; click Suggest reductions again to calculate new suggestions.
  3. Click Review changes to inspect your proposal. You can review an incomplete solution too. Nothing is changed in your expense list until you save.

For example, a $10,000 expense with 30% discretionary has a $7,000 essential minimum. Reducing it to $9,000 keeps those $7,000 essential dollars, so its discretionary share after the reduction becomes approximately 22.22%. Normal inflation and scheduled changes still apply to both portions.

Dates and owners matter

All household negative expenses are included. A complete solution covers them in every affected year. One proposed amount applies throughout each expense's existing dates, so a cut that helps in one year may be unnecessary in another.

  • A Joint negative expense can be covered by reductions to any owner's expenses.
  • A personal negative expense can be covered only by reductions to that person's or Joint expenses.
  • Each reduction is counted only once.

Dates, currencies and inflation settings stay as entered. The chart and annual comparison use today's CAD; the current year covers only the rest of the year.

Read the comparison

  • Reduction needed: the negative amounts to replace.
  • Your reductions: the cuts in your proposed expenses.
  • Still to reduce: the amount not yet covered by eligible cuts.
  • Extra reduction: cuts beyond what is needed or cuts that cannot cover another owner's negative expense. Extra reductions and a remaining gap can appear in the same year.

Suggestions make remaining gaps as small as the discretionary limits, dates and owners allow, then minimize extra reductions across years. For couples, equally good solutions favour sharing each Joint negative amount equally between the spouses. Joint expense reductions can cover either share. If dates or discretionary limits prevent an even split, one spouse can cover more. The suggestions then favour changing fewer expenses. A perfect match is not always possible. You can still choose a different split yourself.

If the solution is incomplete

The page checks how much your entered expenses could cover before you run suggestions. A warning distinguishes a shortfall caused by the current discretionary limits from one that would remain even if all eligible expenses were reduced to zero. It shows the year with the largest unavoidable gap, the full reduction needed, the maximum that eligible cuts could cover, and the amount that would remain uncovered, all in today's CAD. This hypothetical remainder can be smaller than the amount still to reduce in your current proposal. These checks use your current expense amounts, dates and owners. If the negative amounts came from CHOOSE YOUR LEGACY, you may need to lower the legacy target or revise your scenario.

Review the remaining amounts and dates. If an expense could reasonably be cut further, increase its discretionary share and try Suggest reductions again. Check that the expenses you can reduce cover the relevant years and have an eligible owner.

You can also save an incomplete solution. In Review changes, read the warning and check the confirmation box to enable saving despite the gaps. Saving deletes all negative expenses, not just the amounts covered by your reductions. The remaining gaps will no longer be offset by non-taxable income, so your cash flow or legacy may be lower. Run the TIME MACHINE again to assess the result. Editing your proposal clears the confirmation.

What saving changes

Saving updates your proposed expense amounts and discretionary shares, and deletes all negative expenses from your current expense list. Expenses referenced by saved runs are preserved for those runs. The essential minimum stays the same, as in the example above. No new expenses are created to fill any remaining gaps.

You return to your EXPENSES list. This comparison does not recalculate taxes, withdrawals or legacy, and saving does not run the TIME MACHINE or any other tool. Run a new TIME MACHINE when you want to assess the revised budget.