On Dec 27, 2008, at 1:33 AM, johna wrote: > Recently read a posting where you said you'd never implement > hierarchical buckets. I would like to argue that what you lose doesn't > compare to what you gain. I know you said you may implement tags, but > tags come in "after the fact." In other words, you can't tag a > transaction before it happens. > Hi John,
Who says you won't be able to assign tags to transactions before they happen? Do you think memorized transactions won't get tags? ;-) > I first wrote a paragraph defending heirarchical buckets but deleted > it, realizing this wasn't the point of my feature request. I'm simply > looking for a way to organize many buckets. The image could be of > simply organizing the buckets...of "putting the buckets in rooms." I > don't think that's too much to ask, and it doesn't compromise your > overall model for the application. Click a reveal triangle to reveal > buckets in the "garage" and there's all your auto-related buckets. > Click to reveal the "Church" buckets and there's all your giving- > related buckets (tithe, specific missions, etc). This isn't really > about having sub-buckets at all. It's really just about not having to > see all your buckets at once, providing a little organization to those > who want a finer grain to their planning, who have a lot of buckets, > and don't want to see them all at once. Seems like this would be > fairly easy to implement. You've already got iTunes style folders on > the left pane (Smart, Income, Expense). You could add folders for the > buckets that the user could label. Of course, someone who doesn't have > many buckets and doesn't want to use folders, doesn't have to use > them. Clicking on a folder when practically filter the transactions > and graph for that set of buckets. > > My two cents...ok, a dime. :-) > It's very easy to implement, in fact, the first few working versions of MoneyWell had hierarchical buckets because I had categories importing from Quicken that were three-levels deep. I didn't want to lose my "organization" of all my transactions. What changed my mind was the paradox of thinking I was so very organized in Quicken but still failing on sticking to my budget. As I began to sift trough my transactions and noticing all the detail was clouding my ability to focus on my cash flow, I decided to try a flat bucket list and see how that worked. I gave up detail that had no impact on my cash flow (breaking up my phone bills under utilities and then in three different categories under that, for example) and started to reduce my number of buckets even beyond flattening them. After a few days of combining buckets (it was very hard for me to let go of some of them immediately), I saw that my smaller list of buckets gave me a clearer view of my spending. I set up my new spending plan and was actually shocked to see how much I was spending, even though I had all this information in Quicken for years. The bottom line is, I want MoneyWell to be a different kind of tool. I don't want to perpetuate the Intuit concept of "track every detail; spend all your time in our software; print dozens of reports to figure out your financial picture" and instead wanted to really change habits. I've done database design for over 25 years, I love organization and structure but structure without purpose is a waste of space and time. I do hear your desire for organization and MoneyWell will give you more visual tools in the future but for now I'm suggesting that you take a hard look at your structure and see if it needs to be trimmed. Ask why you have something broken out and how having a separate bucket affects improving your cash flow. Remember that the goal is to build a war chest of cash so you never have to be a slave to credit card companies or stress over paying the bills. Now you can read my response to your deleted paragraph (or ignore it) ;-). > -John > > P.S. Below is the deleted paragraph defending heirarchical buckets > (read or ignore): It's been said that almost no expense is truly > unforeseeable. Take auto expenses: tires, oil changes, etc. I could > theoretically have a bucket that is to be filled by the time each of > these would predictably come due. I guess I could get a calculator and > calendar work all this out (and then write it all down for each > overall bucket), but you've got all the "gears" for working this out > in the program already. Of course, all you would need is a simple > "reveal" triangle by each bucket, that would reveal the buckettes. All > the transactions would still be seen in the overall bucket, but it > would be easy then to plan for each specific expense, the key word of > course being "plan". To look ahead, see the expense in the future and > plan for it financially. PLAN, financially, for new tires ($250); > PLAN, financially, to have the serpentine belt replaced ($350), etc. Do you really think you can plan for when your tires will wear out or when a serpentine belt will need to be replaced, which by the way costs about $20 to replace yourself on most cars and a garage charges insane amounts for doing the task? But seriously, the only way I can control my spending is to plan at the big picture level. I know that I spend x amount on gas but that the price for gas might jump up or down so I can't plan for that exact amount forever. Same with car repairs or house maintenance, these are big unknowns with tragic financial hits when a transmission blows or an A/C unit fails. In other words, there are things you can control, buying clothes, Starbucks runs, groceries, nights out, and things you can't. Focus your spending plan on managing your habits and putting first things first (tithing and savings have moved to the top of my list) instead of trying to forecast every possible future expense. I think you'll end up using MoneyWell less but having more money to do the stuff that's more fun in life. Peace, Kevin Hoctor [email protected] No Thirst Software LLC http://nothirst.com http://kevinhoctor.blogspot.com --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "No Thirst Software User Forum" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/no-thirst-software?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
