Hi Kevin, I am evaluating MoneyWell 1.4.3. I am attempting to model my monthly savings goal as you described below, but run into a problem. I don't know if I've uncovered a bug in MoneyWell, or if I'm doing something wrong or just misunderstanding how it's supposed to work. Here's what I can do to reproduce the problem:
- I create a Savings bucket, which has $2000 in it. That is, it shows $2000.00 in green next to it in the Buckets list. - I transfer $2000 from my checking to my savings account, by dragging the checking account to the savings account, and entering today's date, and 2000 in the amount field. - I set the bucket for the outgoing expense side of the transfer, the one with the minus sign next to it, to Savings. The problem is my Savings bucket still shows that it has $2000 in it! It should be empty now by my understanding. If I click on the Savings bucket, it even shows my transfer transaction, with -2000 as the amount, yet the bucket still has $2000 in it. Why isn't the amount of the transfer transaction being subtracted from the bucket amount? When I enter normal (not transfer) transactions, everything works as expected and the bucket amounts go up or down by the amount of the transaction. Thank you, Adam On Mar 7, 6:29 pm, Kevin Hoctor <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Dave, > > The main purpose of an envelope budgeting system is to make sure you > divide up your income and set it aside for various purposes and then > only spend what is in envelopes. Given this concept, yoursavings > accounts are your destination for money but not necessarily a bucket. > > If you have money automatically diverted from your paycheck to savings, you > don't need to track this with buckets. It's never in your > cash flow so just track the bank register of yoursavingsaccount and > be thrilled that you are so good about setting aside money. > > For certain infrequent expenses, I know they are coming but won't > happen until later in the year (birthday and Christmas presents as an > example) but I have a buckets for Gifts Given and others to hold > allocated money so I can set it aside. > > For unexpected expenses, I use mySavingsbucket and set aside a > consistent amount each month and any extra I can stock away in it and > then transfer that money to mysavingsaccount making sure to assign > the outgoing expense side of that transfer to theSavingsbucket so it > drains that bucket. > > I don't try to track unexpected expenses. Instead I try to continually > build a war chest of money so I'm ready when they happen. There's no > way to budget for everything but it sounds like you have a good handle > on it. Just don't try to forcesavingsinto buckets except for the > setting aside money part. > > Peace, > > Kevin Hoctor > [email protected] > No Thirst Software LLChttp://nothirst.comhttp://kevinhoctor.blogspot.com > > On Mar 6, 2009, at 1:43 PM, Dave Hirsch wrote: > > > > > First: I've read a great deal on this list about how to set upsavings > > accounts, but I'm not sure this has been covered. > > > I have threesavingsaccounts: > > 1) Summersavings: Part of my paycheck gets automatically diverted to > > this to account for the fact I get paid 9 months a year. I have > > control over this money and would like to track it, but the money > > doesn't come to me as part of my regular paycheck, which gets > > deposited into my checking account. > > 2) Infrequent Expenses: Many of my buckets are meant to besavings- > > related, to build up money until needed. For example, my gifts bucket > > saves up until needed, primarily around December. This account is > > intended to be the real account in which that money resides. > > 3) Rainy Day Fund: A general accumulation account into which I > > transfer $200 per month from my checking account. > > > I understand that I could just keep all the money in one account and > > keep track of it using buckets, but that doesn't appeal to me, > > especially since I'm still getting up to speed with Moneywell, and I > > might make mistakes with it, causing me to mis-identify how much money > > I have in a given bucket. Having separate accounts is extra insurance > > against spending mysavings. > > > The Rainy Day Fund can be dealt with using one of the methods > > described here: > >http://alan.petitepomme.net/blog/2008/04/tracking-savings-in-moneywel... > > > How to deal with the other two, though? > > Summersavings: I'd like to consider this income deferred, and not > > even assign it a bucket, until I withdraw it during the summer. At > > that time I'd move it to checking and call it income. Perhaps that is > > unwise, though? And if I do that, every contribution to Summer > >Savingsmakes my Unassigned bucket be nonzero. > > > Infrequent Expenses: No idea. Help, please. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
