Every system for separating money works the same way: put the money you cannot spend somewhere you have to think before spending it. The only real question is how many places.
Tax, buffer, everything else
Tax comes off every payment. The buffer holds one to three months of costs and never gets touched for anything that could wait a week. What is left is what you actually have, and it is the only figure you need to look at day to day.
Why a fourth pot usually fails
A pot for equipment, a pot for holidays, a pot for the new laptop — each one is reasonable and together they take more upkeep than they save. If you find yourself moving money between pots to make a payment, you have too many.
The buffer is the one that pays for itself
It is not there for emergencies so much as for choice: it is what lets you turn down badly priced work in a slow month. That is worth more than the interest on it, by a wide margin.
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