On Jan 1, 2009, at 8:28 PM, Dan wrote:

> Sorry, but I cannot figure out how to get started. I have loaded most
> of my online accounts and MW downloaded a whole bunch of transactions.
> I have money from last year remaining in most of the expense
> envelopes, but cannot see how to create a starting balance in the
> expense envelopes. In addition all the transactions downloaded are
> prior to today. I understand I'm supposed to start on the first of the
> month, but just don't see how to do it. I've been through all the
> tutorials. Just being slow, I guess.


Dan,

There is no reason to create a starting balance in any of your buckets  
except for one income bucket. In fact, that's all you're allowed to do  
in MoneyWell. You would do this by using the Edit > Change Cash Flow  
Start Date command. The amount you use in this is your total available  
cash to spend in your primary spending accounts (this usually excludes  
savings and investment accounts).

Remember that you starting balances for your accounts and the  
reconciliation of each of those is on a separate layer from cash flow  
tracking so you may be getting confused trying to merge the two.

If you were going to start an envelope budget today, you'd label a  
bunch of expense envelopes, take your available cash out of the bank  
and divide it up among the envelopes.

That's exactly what you're doing with MoneyWell. You're taking your  
available cash as of the cash flow start date (let's assume Jan. 1,  
2009), putting that in your primary income bucket. Then you allocate  
that money to your expense buckets for spending. Don't get all caught  
up on what you spent in the past and how that affects this allocation.  
You only use your history to help you set up your spending plan.

Peace,

Kevin Hoctor
[email protected]
No Thirst Software LLC
http://nothirst.com
http://kevinhoctor.blogspot.com






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