What it does to the month

The card doesn't only cost money. It gives the month a shape, and the shape is worth seeing because it's the thing the method changes.

Here's the month with the card. Payday. The minimums go out on their dates. The current account is spent on the fixed things, rent or mortgage, bills, food. Somewhere around the third week the account runs low, and the card takes over, and the last ten days are on the card, and the card's balance rises by a few hundred, and the green number falls by the same. Next payday, the minimums go out, including a slightly larger one, and the account is spent, and the card takes over a day or two earlier than last month, because the minimum was larger. Repeat. Over a year, the point at which the card takes over creeps earlier, and the balance creeps up, and nothing has changed except the date the green number gets touched.

That's a month run to the limit, and its shape is set by the card. The end of the month isn't the end of your money. It's the end of the account and the start of the gap, and the gap is what decides when you stop spending, which is when it's gone.

Now the month without. Payday. The fixed amount goes to the dearest card by direct debit, the same day, before anything else, as an earlier book in this series arranges for saving. The account is spent on the fixed things. Somewhere in the third week it runs low, and there's no card, and the last ten days are thin, and you notice, and the noticing shortens the spending, and the month ends with the account near zero and the card's balance lower than it was. Next month the same, with the balance lower again. That's a month with a shape set by your income and not by a limit, and the thinness in the last week is the feeling that the card removed, and it's the feeling that tells you what a month costs.

The second month is uncomfortable. The sixth is a month, and it has a falling balance in it, and a date when the balance reaches zero that you can work out from the sheet, and the date is the thing the card never gave you.