About
Why this channel is a test, not a testimonial
Most budgeting advice is theory. This channel is a test.
One family — $52,000 a year, $4,333 a month take-home, paid every two weeks, $18,000 of debt — tries every popular budgeting method, one month at a time, every number on screen. 50/30/20, zero-based, cash envelopes, snowball vs avalanche. When a method breaks, you see the day it broke and the dollar amount that broke it — before you try it on your own money.
And you can check the math: every test runs in a spreadsheet you can download free, prefilled with the same numbers.
How this works: the family is a model — the incomes, bills, and tax numbers behind it are sourced US data, and every test is built and checked by hand. This is education about budgeting methods, not personal financial advice. Some links are affiliate links; if you sign up through one I may earn a commission, at no cost to you.
Who's behind it
I'm the one building and checking every test — the sheets, the tax math, the debt-payoff runs. No production team, no on-camera host, no persona. Just a person who builds a spreadsheet, runs the numbers, and publishes what they show, wrong answers included.
Where the numbers come from
Nothing on this site is invented for effect. The household's income, taxes, bills, and debt all trace back to primary sources:
| Figure | Primary source |
|---|---|
| Income & pay | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics |
| Taxes | IRS Revenue Procedures (federal) and North Carolina Department of Revenue (state) |
| Health insurance | KFF Employer Health Benefits Survey |
| Groceries | USDA Cost of Food reports (Low-Cost Food Plan) |
| Rent | HUD Fair Market Rent schedule, Greensboro–High Point, NC |
| Debt rates | Federal Reserve G.19 consumer credit release; Federal Student Aid published rates |
Every figure carries its source and the date it was retrieved — the same standard applied in the sheet's own Sources tab. If a number ever looks wrong, that's the point of publishing where it came from: you can check it.