No. It is not crazy to think a BP can manage money- it is crazy to think it is a skill that is easily learned, or learned over night.

Coming up with tricks for yourself is imperative and as I said: you don't figure it all out immediately.

Doing auto draft helps, but if an autodraft is set to the end of the month or the end of a pay period, it's not all that helpful. You can try to work with your utility and service companies to time autodraft right at the beginning of a pay period. I am on SSDI- I get it on the 3rd and usually by the fifth all my bills have been submitted.

I also buy a little bit of extra food whenever I can at the store- I often have a pretty well stocked [emergency supply] pantry because I slowly build it up.

What this does is get everything necessary, except for food, covered. The money I have left is for transportation and food.

Some people go further to buy grocery giftcards- then they know that money has to be spent on food.
I feel like until one comes up with skills to manage cash spending in an episode, the best way to protect oneself is to have a checking account with no checks and no working debit card- you pay all your bills online, through bill pay or transfer. As another poster said- if you need money you go to the teller physically, which means you have to plan.

I have a certain amount of "emergency cash" around but I have trained myself to NOT TOUCH IT. PERIOD.

It is in a specific place and for any kind of immediate emergency. Other than that- prepaying for anything and everything can help: add to a bus/transportion pass as much as you can, buy gas cards, grocery gift cards.

You can figure out a system eventually for yourself, but those are the short term things I have come up with.