"Can I Afford This?"

Your Bank Balance is the Wrong Place to Look

Jerod sat at his kitchen table. He gathers his statements once a month to make sure all of his bills and utilities are paid. He's been pondering getting a new car. His current car seems to be in the shop as much as it's on the road anymore. He's visited some car lots in the past week and found a few practical, sensible choices. But then there was that one temptation—the sporty upgrade with a price tag that was a noticeable step up. The salesman made it sound so easy by spreading the payments out over 6 years. He could have it all for just $600/month!

Jerod's attention goes back to the pile of bills. He checks his bank account balance and... well, it feels healthy. He has almost $3,500. Maybe the sporty car isn't such a stretch after all?

Have you ever felt like Jerod? How do you answer the question, "How do I know if I can afford this?"

If you, like Jerod, go to your checking account balance for the answer... you're not alone. You're also being lied to.

Not by the car salesman (well, maybe), and not even by your bank.

You're being lied to by that single, "healthy" number at the top of your app. That number is the most misleading, anxiety-inducing metric in your financial life. And in this post, we're going to show you how to find the truth.

Your Bank Account is Lying to You

If Jerod's story feels uncomfortably familiar, you're not alone. It’s a feeling shared by the 67% of Americans who are living paycheck to paycheck.

Now, it’s tempting to think that’s a "low-income" problem. It’s not. It's a cash flow problem that affects people from all income levels, including high-earners like doctors and lawyers. A doctor might have $20,000 in their checking account, but if they have $19,500 in student loans, malpractice insurance, mortgage payments, and car loans due, their real available cash is just $500.

This is the lie.

Your bank balance is just one big, unallocated number. It doesn't know about the dozen other jobs your money is already committed to. It's a vanity metric that quietly gives you permission to spend, when you're actually just one unexpected expense away from trouble.

This is why we're so anxious about money. It’s not just you: 43% of U.S. adults say money negatively impacts their mental health. In fact, more than one in five of us (22%) avoid checking our bank balances altogether out of fear.

We’re all instinctively doing what Jerod did: staring at a number that we know, deep down, isn't the whole truth.

The Scientific Fix: Why Your Brain Craves "Jars"

The false assurance you feel when you see your bank balance is a normal reaction to a flawed system. It’s simply impossible for our brains to look at one large number and accurately track the dozen different jobs that money needs to do—from rent, to groceries, to saving for that new car.

Worse, this single-number system actively tricks us. We instinctively overestimate how much of that total is actually available for discretionary spending, which creates a dangerous, self-perpetuating cycle: we overspend, get squeezed by the bills we forgot, and fall right back into new financial pressures, month after month.

This exact human quirk fascinated an economist named Richard Thaler. For years, he studied a simple puzzle: why do we, as humans, treat money "irrationally"? Why does a $100 tax refund feel like "found money" we can splurge, while a $100 from our paycheck feels "serious"? Logically, it's all just money.

Thaler didn't dismiss this as a flaw; he studied it as a predictable pattern. His research, which ultimately won him a Nobel Prize, was built on a concept he called "Mental Accounting".

He proved that our brains naturally and automatically try to sort money into different "accounts" or "buckets" in our heads. We have "rent money," "vacation money," and "grocery money." We do this because it’s the only way our brains can simplify the complex, stressful question of "What can I afford?".

This is why the old-school cash envelope system was so powerful. It wasn't just a folksy trick; it was a physical application of this Nobel-winning theory. It worked because it forced you to make the "unseen" jobs for your money visible and tangible. You couldn't accidentally spend your "rent" money on a new car, because that money was in a completely different, dedicated envelope.

This is the solution. To move from anxiety to clarity, you don't need a different bank. You need a better system—one that aligns with how your brain is already wired to work.

A Modern System for True Financial Clarity

If the answer is an old-school system like cash envelopes, why aren't we all doing it?

Because in 2025, using physical cash is a logistical nightmare. Our paychecks are direct-deposited, our bills are on auto-pay, and "cash only" is a rarity. The system is brilliant, but the tool is obsolete.

This is why we built Jars Budgets.

We designed it to be the modern, digital application of this proven "Mental Accounting" system. It's a tool that finally lets you align your real-world finances with how your brain is already wired to work.

Instead of one big, confusing bank balance, Jars lets you digitally partition all your money into as many Jars as you need.

You can create a Jar for "Groceries", "Rent", "Car Insurance", and even a "Pet Fund" or a "Vacation". Then, using a Paycheck Plan, you can automatically distribute every dollar from your paycheck into these Jars. You're not just tracking money; you're giving every single dollar a job before you spend it.

This is where Jars solves the flaws of other tools.

Bank-specific features like "buckets" or "pockets" are a good start, but they fail the moment you use a different bank or spend on a credit card. They only see a tiny piece of your financial puzzle. Jars connects to all your accounts—checking, savings, and credit cards—to give you one single, unified view of your money.

And unlike apps that just assign your money to a category (like a fancy spreadsheet), Jars creates a true partition for your funds - like miniature, purpose-driven bank accounts.

It's the difference between knowing your rent money is safe and just hoping you'll stick to your spreadsheet. We now have our answer to the question, "Can I afford this?"

The Final Step: From Anxiety to Confidence

Jars' Paycheck Plan automates your budgeting, giving every dollar a job.

It all comes back to that feeling of anxiety at the kitchen table. The stress Jerod felt wasn't because he had "only" $3,500. It was because he didn't have a plan for his money!

The way to stop feeling anxious about your money isn't just to "make more" or "spend less." It's to have a plan. It's to have a system that aligns with how your brain is already wired to work.

Jerod finds Jars Budgets and sets himself up by allocating his $3,500 into purposeful Jars for his rent, utilities, insurance, and groceries. He discovered that after all his obligations were accounted for, his "New Car" Jar was nearly empty. He now understood that the $600/month payment would stretch him beyond the point of financial peace.

With this new clarity, he was able to make a confident choice: he could either save up a while longer for the dream car, or get a more practical option now without the stress.

This is what it means to be in control. It's the ability to buy that car with confidence when your "New Car" Jar is full, knowing you didn't steal money from your "Rent" or "Pet Fund" Jars.

That is the power of a true envelope budgeting system. It replaces anxiety with clarity. It replaces guilt with permission.

Let Jars automate this effortlessly for you. You can try ALL the features for free for 30 days to prove it can answer your questions!