If you aren’t able to pay off the purchase with the money you have available, we strongly encourage you to consider postponing the purchase until you do have enough money to pay for it in full. However, we completely understand that sometimes that is not possible (especially if it is an emergency).
If you are considering making a big purchase you don’t have the cash for, please consider posting a question in the Community. Other members can help think through possible solutions to avoid adding credit card debt.
If you make a purchase on your credit card and plan to pay it off over time, treat it like any other credit card transaction and assign it to the appropriate envelope. The difference is that it will make the envelope’s balance negative. The balance will remain in the negative until you are able to add enough funds over time to get it back to positive.
Here’s an example: You put a $1,000 medical bill on your credit card. You assign the $1,000 transaction to your "Medical" envelope, which has only $500 available in it. $500 - $1,000 means your "Medical" envelope now has a -$500 balance. Moving forward, you will need to allocate funds to your "Medical" envelope until you are able to get the envelope back to at least $0.