Hi Mark! > > In reality, all I want to see is how a big payment will affect my > balance, and if I need to move money from my savings, as my checking > account pays no interest. >
The way that you want to use MoneyWell is exactly how I've been using it, which is only slightly different from how the videos suggest the setup. First, you have to decide which accounts you want to use to "fund" your spending plan. These accounts will be the primary accounts from which you will purchase things you plan for in your monthly plan. Generally, they will include, 1 or more checking accounts, 1 or more cash accounts, and 1 or more credit cards. I also include a savings account in order to do exactly what you're saying. But this list should not include car loans, home mortgages, investment accounts that you pay into or pay down over time (you can track these with MoneyWell, but don't treat them as an account that funds your spending plan). Personally, I choose to list these "spending plan accounts" first in my account list, then I have created a bogus Cash account with a name that is a series of dashes. My non-spending plan accounts are below this artificial line I have created. It helps me to remember when I need to assign a bucket and when I shouldn't. When you first start using MoneyWell, you'll want to ensure that your starting amount in your Income bucket is the sum of these accounts. There are two ways to do this. 1) Add up the balances of each of the above accounts, and enter this value as the Cash Flow Start Amount (Edit->Change Cash Flow Start Date) - or - 2) When setting the starting balances for each of these accounts, assign the starting balance to your desired income bucket. Doing this will establish the equality: Sum of cash in buckets = Sum of cash in accounts Now, you follow three rules: 1) Whenever you spend/deposit money from/into one of your spending plan accounts, you'll assign the transaction to a bucket. 2) Whenever you transfer money to/from one of the accounts to an account that isn't in this group, you'll assign the transaction to a bucket. 3) Whenever you transfer money between accounts in this group, you will not assign the transaction to a group. Following these three rules preserves the equality expressed above. > So... lets say my checking balance today is $3,000 and I get paid on > the 14th and my Amex bill is on due on the 12th and a choose to pay > $2,500, I want to see the immediate effect in the register. I can see > that my effective running balance is $500 as at the 12th. If at any > time between now and then, my value balance for the 12th goes below > $0, I can transfer the difference from my savings on that day. However > that may never happen, it may depend on the size of my phone bill, or > Con Ed bill which cannot be predicted month in advance by a bucket. Here's the problem. If you never exceed your bucket balance for that month, use of MoneyWell assures that you have the money to pay for the expense. However, because you have split a significant portion of your spending plan cash into an account other than checking, it's possible that much of your monthly expenses could be hidden in savings, not checking. Ideally, MoneyWell would include a visual aid that shows a projected future balance of selected accounts or buckets over time to help you identify trouble areas. Nonetheless, using MoneyWell with today's features, you can do what you want, if you schedule all your transactions when you become aware of them. By adjusting the future pending transaction period so that you can see all of the scheduled transactions, you can then individually select each transaction and cycle through them using the down arrow key, watching the bottom of the screen for a negative value. This approach is certainly less than ideal, but it does allow you to identify trouble areas. Grace to you, Blair --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
