Lesson 3.1: Rescaling the Budget

Either load the budget file rescaling_example.bgt (in the examples folder), or use the program to create the budget depicted below:
In this mini-budget notice that two categories are marked as Essential Expenses. If this is not the case then click on the Edit Original Budget tab and check the boxes next to Food and Housing. What this means is that Food and Housing expenditure will be held constant when the budget is rescaled.
Lets try rescaling the budget now. There are five ways to alter the Rescaled Budget total:
1. Click on the Rescaled Budget text box, type in a new value, and confirm by pressing the enter key.
2. Click on the clickspin controls (arrowheads to the right of the text box).
  Tip: Hold down shift key whilst clicking to make more precise changes.
3. Use the vertical scrollbar control (between the budget tree and the charts). Click on the arowheads at each end to make small adjustments, or along the scrollbar itself to make larger changes. You can also slide the 'thumb' along the scrollbar and monitor the changing value in a popup tooltip.
4. Click any of the pre-set values at the top of the Rescale Budget tab window.
5. Click on a value in the dropdown list - open by clicking on the down arrow to the right of the Rescaled Budget textbox. This list contains every value which has been confirmed by pressing the enter key.
Lets use the first method and type in a slightly reduced budget total of $18,500. (Don't forget to press Enter key to confirm).
Now the budget should look like this:
Food and Housing categories have not been affected by the change, but Entertainment and Vacation have both been reduced whilst still maintaining their relative proportions. Note that Vacation spending is still twice that of Entertainment.
Now type in value of $17,000, and press Enter. The non-essential expenses have been reduce to zero, as we would expect. Our budget is now the minimum possible whilst still paying for those expenses marked as Essential.
So what happens if we try to further reduce the budget. Lets see. Type $16,000 into the Rescaled Budget textbox and press Enter.
The program recognizes the problem and responds with an appropriate error message.
Then, when we clear the message - by clicking OK - Rescaled Budget is automatically reset to the minimum possible value of $17,000.