On Mar 26, 2009, at 1:06 PM, Lance wrote: > I understand your point about hopelessly trying to predict the future > and I don't think that's what I'm trying to do. I'm just trying to > avoid having to maintain a separate spreadsheet to track what I think > could easily be done within MoneyWell. > Lance,
I didn't mean to suggest that you personally are doing something useless, my comment was more general that time spent managing what we do today and spend today is much more productive than trying to predict what might happen down the road. The best we can do is build ourselves some financial protection against the unexpected. > Now that I've started playing with Future Transactions, I think I > might have solved my problem somewhat. If I set up Future Transactions > for every regular bill I expect to have through the rest of the year, > I can now group things into fewer buckets. I just discovered the > "Repeat" feature for transactions, which is very handy. You should > create a video tutorial on this one as many users are probably missing > how useful this can be. > We should create "a lot" of videos but my time is very consumed with new development so the balance tips to that more often than the videos. We do have new ideas for articles, step-by-step tutorials, and more videos that will appear as we can produce them. > Going back to my previous example, I create a set of repeating future > transactions for Electricity, Water, Garbage, etc. I can easily set up > the repeat to happen every month or every two months based on how > often I get that bill. Now I can get away with a single bucket > (Utilities) while still being able to plan for each bill individually > (via Future Transactions). > > I'll still have to see how this works out as I go forward. I assume > when the "real" transaction comes in next month, MoneyWell will > autodetect it as duplicate and ask to merge with my future transaction > I put in there. If so, this solution should work pretty well for and > will eliminate my need for so many buckets. > Yes, if the amount matches. I always make sure that I put in pending transactions (even if they don't repeat) when large bills are upcoming or deposits. I want to see those in my list as a reminder and it's comforting to see them match up with my download to know that they have cleared. > The one very small enhancement that would really sell me on this > method is if MoneyWell could automatically fill in (or at least > suggest) the Spending Plan amount based on Future Transactions I've > already entered. Currently I can just select a month, then select all > the transactions that show up and look at the bottom to see the sum > and then manually fill that in. > There are several ideas I have for helping with updating spending plans. Most won't see the light until an interface update in 2.0 but they are coming. > I would also like some visual indication if my current Spending Plan > amount is lower than the sum of the Future Transactions I have > assigned to this bucket for the month. This would make it easy for me > to find where I've screwed up the Spending Plan amount. One planned enhancement is a graph to help see projected spending versus planned spending. I think this will give you a bit of what you're looking for in this area. Thanks for the feedback and suggestions! 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
