

You’re probably doing your household budget all wrong (2013) - yonibot
http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/04/the_envelope_method_for_household_budgets_is_a_bad_idea.html

======
tlb
I once lived with someone who followed the envelope approach. Although it was
obviously sub-optimal, it did have its comforts. You could blow your weekly
entertainment envelope on whatever the hell you felt like and not feel guilty
because your rent, food, and savings envelopes were still full. It saved
mental effort and decision fatigue. A follower of Stoic philosophy might well
trade off some optimality for mental tranquility.

I'd love to have an app that figured it out for me. It would achieve some
measure of optimality, while saving me from constantly having to make complex
ill-defined tradeoffs every time I buy something.

~~~
thatthatis
Exactly. This article is written for "homo economicus" not homosapien. It
assumes people are perfectly rational then argues that a technique built to
overcome human limits on rationality and processing ability is suboptimal.

Economics at its worst. It starts by assuming the cow is a sphere.

