Imagine you went to a zoo and none of the animals were in cages. How would you know where to find the lions or tigers?

The same could be said for your bank accounts. How do you know where the money for your car payment is? Where's the money for taxes, insurance premiums, mortgages or any other obligation you have? Which money is yours to do with what you want?

With a little effort on your part CashTamer can help you answer these questions and give you amazing insights into your money.

Before you start using CashTamer it helps to spend some time identifying your obligations. In other words who has a claim on your money? Do you have a mortgage or car payment that you need to make a payment for each month? Are you self-employed and need to make quarterly estimated tax payments? Once you identify these obligations you can then determine what portion of any given pay check needs to go toward these obligations.

When you join CashTamer you are given a complimentary bank account.

Each bank account you create is a container for one or more funds. A fund is simply a bucket or cage where you store money for specific obligations. Funds are equivalent to cages in a zoo, which are critical to maintaining order in your checkbook.

As you need to fulfill an obligation by making a payment you simply pay for it out of the fund that was used to accumulate money for that obligation.

Let's illustrate this process in more detail.

When you get a pay check you deposit it in your actual physical bank account as you normally do. You would then sign in to CashTamer and navigate to the bank account record that corresponds to the physical bank account you deposited your paycheck in.

Once you have selected the desired bank account you are presented with several functions, one of which is the Deposit function. This function allows you to enter the amount you deposited at your physical bank like you would with a normal checkbook. When you do this the money is stored in a special Deposit fund.

Once you have recorded the deposit it's time to use one of the other functions, which is the Obligate function. This function allows you to start obligating your deposit into the various funds you created within that bank account.

Ideally, you would have a different fund for all your obligations with a General or My Cash fund to store money that is not obligated. Presumably any unobligated money that is left over is for you. That's your money!

Think of an obligation as something you need to pay for versus something you want to pay for.

The goal is to obligate all your money so nothing is left in the Deposit fund.

For example, let's say you have rent that costs $1,000 per month and you are paid $2,500 twice a month. Each pay check you would deposit $2,500 at your physical bank and then record the deposit in CashTamer. You would then obligate $500 out of the $2,500 to the Rent fund.

When it's time to pay for an obligation you simply write a check or use your online payment as you normally would. You would then go into CashTamer to the corresponding fund. The fund presents several functions one of which is the Payment function. This function allows you to record the payment and deducts the amount from the fund.

Continuing with our example, when it's time to make the rent payment you go to your Rent fund and record a payment for $1,000. Since you have been obligating $500 each pay check to the Rent fund it has enough cash in it to cover the rent payment.

Not only does CashTamer record the payment but it also makes sure your fund balance as well as your overall bank account balance is sufficient to cover the payment. In the event that a given fund does not have sufficient funds to cover a payment you can use the Fund Transfer function to move money between funds as needed.

As you get more sophisticated in your use of CashTamer you can create multiple bank accounts with multiple funds. Not only can you move money between funds within a given bank account but you can also move money between bank accounts. This is ideal if you have multiple physical bank accounts such as a regular checking account and a separate savings account or an internet savings account.

So in a nutshell CashTamer allows you to record deposits and payments and move money between funds and even bank accounts with very little effort. As you become proficient with CashTamer you will be amazed at the insight you get into your cash.