Spiral, It looks like you have the concepts down, but MoneyWell can simplify things for you.
I'm assuming that you're just getting started and the credit card balance is for last month's expenses. I'm also assuming that you've paid off the balance, you don't have any debt that you're paying down, and that you'll use your card for everyday purchases that you have planned to make in accordance with your Spending Plan. If so, what you did to get to started isn't what you'll have to do in the future (even if it's not, it's still simple, it's just that the info here doesn't apply--let me know, and I'll address the other case). I'll explain. Now that your credit card has a balance of zero on it, whenever you make purchases in the future, you'll assign those credit card transactions to the appropriate buckets. When you buy groceries with your credit card, you'll need to assign the transaction to your Groceries bucket. When it's time time pay your credit card bill, you'll just make the transfer from checking to your credit card. You won't have to move any more buckets around. And you won't assign this transaction to a bucket. I've found that getting MoneyWell started in a dynamic financial situation (multiple accounts, statements closing out on different days, and usually not aligned with the beginning and end of the month) is much more difficult that using it day to day once everything is established. Blair On Jan 1, 2009, at 3:10 PM, SpiralOcean wrote: > > Checking $400 > Credit Card -$100 > Salary $200 > > So you are saying, > to pay off a balance on a credit card: > Create a transfer from checking to credit card (I dragged checking to > credit card). > Checking $300 > Credit Card $0 > Salary $200 > > Go to the Checking Account, look for the transfer, drag it to a bucket > called Credit Card Balance Payment. > Checking $300 > Credit Card $0 > Salary $200 > Credit Card Balance Payment Bucket $-100 > > Go to the Salary income, drag it to the Credit Card Balance Payment to > pay out of my salary so that the Credit Card balance Payment has a $0 > balance. > Checking $300 > Credit Card $0 > Salary $100 > Credit Card Balance Payment Bucket $0 > > This gave me the correct amount. > > There are a lot of steps there, and it concerns me that I may forget > to do something and not know that I have less money in my checking > account than I thought I did. > > If transfers should always be flowed from the outgoing payment, a > suggestion is to show the outgoing transfer as 1 transaction in the > Unassigned smart bucket. This would help me remember that I need to > do something with that transfer, otherwise my money may be off. > > Thank you for the assistance. > > On Jan 1, 12:06 pm, Kevin Hoctor <[email protected]> wrote: >> On Jan 1, 2009, at 12:26 PM, SpiralOcean wrote: >> >> >> >>> Just set up new accounts today. A checking and a credit card. >> >>> I put in an initial balance in the checking and credit card. For >>> example purpose: >>> Checking $400 >>> Credit Card $100 >> >>> I took my initial starting balance in my checking account and placed >>> it into the income bucket of salary. >>> Salary $400 >> >>> I created buckets, assigned monthly allocations, and flowed the >>> cash. >>> The amount of money in the Salary bucket went down as expected: >>> Salary $200. >> >>> Checking $400 >>> Credit Card $100 >>> Salary $200 >> >>> I paid off my credit card by dragging from my checking into the >>> credit >>> card: >> >>> Checking $300 >>> Credit Card $100 >>> Salary $200 >> >>> This is a bit scary to me because my Salary staid the same. But I >>> should have $100 left to allocate in the Salary? >> >>> I went to the transfer smart bucket, and dragged that transfer to my >>> salary bucket and the salary bucket went down by $100. But only >>> if I >>> dragged the transfer from my checking account. If I dragged the >>> transfer from my credit card account then my salary went up $100. >> >>> This is scary to me because I don't feel I can trust how much >>> money is >>> in the salary bucket to allocate? >> >>> Is there something I did wrong here? >> >> If you have a balance on your credit card that you are paying off, >> you >> should use a bucket like "Debt Repayment" and flow your outgoing >> payment (transfer) through that. This way you'll have to flow money >> from your Salary bucket to that expense bucket. >> >> If you purchase something on the credit card and that purchase gets >> assigned to a bucket and you have filled that bucket with money from >> the Salary bucket, then your payment (transfer) doesn't need to be >> assigned to any outgoing bucket because you are just moving money >> from >> one account to another and the categorizing of that payment was done >> with the purchase. >> >> So in summary: >> 1. Payments on credit cards for existing balances need to be >> assigned to an expense bucket because they are not for a current >> purchase, whereas… >> >> 2. Payments on credit cards for current purchases do not need a >> bucket assignment because the purchase is tracking the cash flow. >> >> Peace, >> >> Kevin Hoctor >> [email protected] >> No Thirst Software LLChttp://nothirst.comhttp:// >> 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
