About Plumbmark
A small practice about one idea: a budget should be able to show its work.
Plumbmark writes method guides, evidence notes and plain explanations of record keeping. We keep the scope narrow on purpose, because a narrow subject can be explained well and checked honestly.
Purpose
What we are for
We help people turn planned numbers into records that other people can check. The work is careful and a little dull, in the best sense. A good trail is rarely dramatic. It is a set of dated lines that say where each figure came from, when it was last true and how someone could test it.
Our audience is anyone who plans shared money: households that pool costs, freelancers who track project spending, and volunteer treasurers who inherit a plan they did not write.
Limits
What we will not do
- Tell you what to spend, save, invest or give away.
- Predict prices, markets, interest rates or the value of any asset.
- Assess your personal finances, debts, taxes or legal position.
- Publish invented testimonials, reviews, statistics or client names.
- Sell a product that promises certainty about money.
If you need advice about your own circumstances, a qualified professional who can see the whole picture is the right person to ask.
Craft
How we write
Our guides use plain words and short sentences. When a term has a precise meaning, we define it once and keep using it in the same sense. We prefer the word "estimate" to "projection" unless we are describing a calculation that can be shown step by step.
We say what a record cannot prove, because the gaps between records are where plans most often fail. A guide that only praises a document is not doing its job. A guide that explains where the document stops being useful is.
Principles
Four principles behind every guide
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Name the source before the number
A figure without a source is an opinion. We ask for the record first and the amount second.
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Date every basis, including the last check
A record can be correct and still out of date. The date of the last comparison matters as much as the date of the record.
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Keep a failed check in the trail
A disagreement between plan and record is information. Hiding it makes the plan look better and makes it less useful.
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Teach the method, then leave the decision with its owner
The person who owns the money decides what to do with it. We provide the method and the vocabulary, and nothing more.
Voice
Calm, exact and unhurried
We would rather be a little less exciting and entirely clear. Nothing on this site asks you to act quickly, buy anything or make a decision before you have read the relevant guide. If a sentence sounds like a promise about money, it has probably been rewritten.
Plumbmark publishes teaching material. It is not financial, legal, or medical advice, and it does not give personal recommendations.