[No Thirst Software] Re: Car Loan
Mark, I also like the idea of putting the money toward the principle, but for different reasons. Whenever I've tried to do similar activity with my investments--I'll accumulate it in Savings throughout the year, and then buy my investments in one big lump, usually, I don't have as much in Savings as I had initially planned to invest, and this is because I am not really committed to the investment, and I don't have the discipline to follow through. With a large balance in my Savings, the temptation is strong to buy that new techno-toy, rather than continuing to save the money for investments. Buying the investments throughout the year, or in your case, paying off your car loan, you're really committed, and there's no going back. You have to make decisions with the money you have left over. Blair On Dec 23, 2008, at 10:00 PM, mhadja...@gmail.com wrote: I'd like the debt to be paid off a lot sooner. I could have the option of putting 50 dollars per month into a savings account and once i reach my loan payoff, I could just pay it in one check. However, I choose to pay the 50 per month towards principle payments to save on interest payments. If I can save 5-10 dollars per month in interest, over a 5 yr loan, that's extra money to do something else with it. Maybe I should average my monthly payments and make the average my 'spending plan' for the car payment? On Dec 23, 7:45 pm, Blair Watkinson thewatkins...@mac.com wrote: Mark, The only caveat I would add is that perhaps you shouldn't just plan your minimum payment as your Spending Plan amount. Rather, take a different approach--when do you want the debt paid off? What will you have to pay each month to make that happen? Can you make the sacrifices to achieve that goal? Balance your sacrifices and your debt pay-off goals, and prescribe that as the minimum amount in MoneyWell. I have found that when I don't plan for an expense (like Savings), and just put away what's left over, I don't have anything left over. Money, like other things in life, is a limited resource with many demands on it. If we're not deliberate about how to use it, we will find that we are using it in a way that we would not have planned had we taken a more deliberate approach (I really wanted to pay off my Car loan, but I didn't set the money aside, and instead went out to eat 25 out of 30 nights this month). Therefore, my spending plan needs to be a reflection of my priorities--if eliminating debt is a priority, plan for that, and don't do it as an after-thought. Now, you can still catch additional money on the back-side of the month as well--if you have money left over. But, I'd encourage you to deliberately plan an amount that meets your goals and is doable within your personal lifestyle, sacrifices, etc, when dealing with the limited commodity that money is. Blair On Dec 23, 2008, at 7:33 AM, Jaysen wrote: Budget your minimum payment including interest (the $200). You can still pay more, but it will need to come from your surplus. The idea with MoneyWell is to let you control expenses and show you where you are (sorry if that is slightly off Kevin). You can always spend more, but you will need to steal from Peter to pay Paul and MoneyWell will let you. Here is how. 1. Do your spending plan 2. Allocate income 3. Over spend in a bucket (over pay your loan) 4. Find a bucket that has extra allocation right now. 5. Flow money from that bucket into the over spent. Easiest way to so drag the source bucket to the destination bucket. 6. Indicate how much you are moving from bucket A to bucket B then hit add. Presto. Instant balancing of the flow. Hope that helps. Jaysen On Dec 23, 12:07 am, mhadja...@gmail.com mhadja...@gmail.com wrote: I was messing around with iBank and it seems to do what I want, however, I'm still willing to give MW a shot till the end of the week. What I want to know is my principle balance on the car. I don't need it down to the exact dollar, as this amount will change on a daily basis since that's how interest is calculated with this loan. However, I would like it to be more ballpark. So updating it once a month is sufficient. My starting balance is a -xx,xxx So what your saying is, when you make the payment, you move X dollars from your checking into your car loan bucket. Since I pay mine differently each month, I can't really budget for this, or can I? I have to make at least (eg, $350.00) - anything more goes towards principle like I said. So should I set my budget for 350, or should I make it lets say double this amount? Most likely I don't plan on making more than double payments. Then when you receive your next months statement, you update the interest and principle (doing a split transaction) ? I'll try that out as i'm doing something close to it, but mine seems to involve a few more
[No Thirst Software] Re: Car Loan
Budget your minimum payment including interest (the $200). You can still pay more, but it will need to come from your surplus. The idea with MoneyWell is to let you control expenses and show you where you are (sorry if that is slightly off Kevin). You can always spend more, but you will need to steal from Peter to pay Paul and MoneyWell will let you. Here is how. 1. Do your spending plan 2. Allocate income 3. Over spend in a bucket (over pay your loan) 4. Find a bucket that has extra allocation right now. 5. Flow money from that bucket into the over spent. Easiest way to so drag the source bucket to the destination bucket. 6. Indicate how much you are moving from bucket A to bucket B then hit add. Presto. Instant balancing of the flow. Hope that helps. Jaysen On Dec 23, 12:07 am, mhadja...@gmail.com mhadja...@gmail.com wrote: I was messing around with iBank and it seems to do what I want, however, I'm still willing to give MW a shot till the end of the week. What I want to know is my principle balance on the car. I don't need it down to the exact dollar, as this amount will change on a daily basis since that's how interest is calculated with this loan. However, I would like it to be more ballpark. So updating it once a month is sufficient. My starting balance is a -xx,xxx So what your saying is, when you make the payment, you move X dollars from your checking into your car loan bucket. Since I pay mine differently each month, I can't really budget for this, or can I? I have to make at least (eg, $350.00) - anything more goes towards principle like I said. So should I set my budget for 350, or should I make it lets say double this amount? Most likely I don't plan on making more than double payments. Then when you receive your next months statement, you update the interest and principle (doing a split transaction) ? I'll try that out as i'm doing something close to it, but mine seems to involve a few more steps. Mark On Dec 22, 11:41 pm, The Watkinson Family thewatkins...@mac.com wrote: Hi, Mark, I take a different approach to loans than the others that have responded. I like that MoneyWell helps me spend only the money that I have by allocating it to specific purposes. However, as your example demonstrates, finance software should do more than that. I refuse to keep two money softwares to track overall net worth as well as keep spending under control, and I have found that MoneyWell will actually do both. Consider the fact that both your interest payment as well as the principal payment are Car Loan expenses. Here's what I do. When I first pay the bill every month, I don't know how much I am paying towards interest and how much towards principal... I'm just paying the bill. I create this expense as a single transfer from my Checking account to my Car loan account. I put this transfer in the Car Loan bucket. Later, when I receive my loan statement, or look at it on-line, I can see how much of my payment was for interest and how much was for principal. I edit the original transaction, creating a split. I put Interest and Principal in the memo of the two split items. The Interest item should not be a transfer, but it should be assigned to the Car Loan bucket. Principal should be a transfer from Checking to Car loan, and it should also be assigned to your Car Loan bucket. This way, your Car loan account will show approximately what you owe on your car loan as far as the principal is concerned (of course this amount changes every day), and you will be able to track your spending with buckets, as well. Hope this helps. Please let me know if you need further detail. Grace to you, Blair On Dec 22, 2008, at 10:08 PM, mhadja...@gmail.com wrote: My monthly payment from the bank is lets say 200 bucks. Each month, I pay a different amount, sometimes 225, sometimes 250, sometimes even 300. Now any extra over the 200 goes towards principle. So I can't track a steady cash flow because depending on how much extra money I have left is what I put in towards the car payment. So my 60 month loan should be paid off within 48 months hopefully. Which makes having to do more work in MW to see my remaining loan balance as well as track cash flow. Mark On Dec 22, 9:59 am, Kevin Hoctor ke...@nothirst.com wrote: On Dec 21, 2008, at 7:01 PM, mhadja...@gmail.com wrote: Maybe i'm missing something, but my interest goes down each payment as I'm paying more towards principle. It also changes depending on how many days sooner my payment clears. The reason for tracking is to see how much money is leaving my checking account each month, as well as the remaining principle left to pay my auto loan. When I receive my statement, it tells me the prior months interest payment, which I tack on to the remaining auto loan
[No Thirst Software] Re: Car Loan
Thank you! As long as moving money from bucket to bucket doesn't affect or 'change' my account flow (checking, savings, money market, cc's, loans, etc), then i'm fine. My checking account should reflect the same as my bank statement. Now onto reporting... I would like to know my income to debt ratios, which categories I spend more in, which buckets I don't hit my budget, etc.. Mark On Dec 23, 8:33 am, Jaysen letsw...@jaysenodell.com wrote: Budget your minimum payment including interest (the $200). You can still pay more, but it will need to come from your surplus. The idea with MoneyWell is to let you control expenses and show you where you are (sorry if that is slightly off Kevin). You can always spend more, but you will need to steal from Peter to pay Paul and MoneyWell will let you. Here is how. 1. Do your spending plan 2. Allocate income 3. Over spend in a bucket (over pay your loan) 4. Find a bucket that has extra allocation right now. 5. Flow money from that bucket into the over spent. Easiest way to so drag the source bucket to the destination bucket. 6. Indicate how much you are moving from bucket A to bucket B then hit add. Presto. Instant balancing of the flow. Hope that helps. Jaysen On Dec 23, 12:07 am, mhadja...@gmail.com mhadja...@gmail.com wrote: I was messing around with iBank and it seems to do what I want, however, I'm still willing to give MW a shot till the end of the week. What I want to know is my principle balance on the car. I don't need it down to the exact dollar, as this amount will change on a daily basis since that's how interest is calculated with this loan. However, I would like it to be more ballpark. So updating it once a month is sufficient. My starting balance is a -xx,xxx So what your saying is, when you make the payment, you move X dollars from your checking into your car loan bucket. Since I pay mine differently each month, I can't really budget for this, or can I? I have to make at least (eg, $350.00) - anything more goes towards principle like I said. So should I set my budget for 350, or should I make it lets say double this amount? Most likely I don't plan on making more than double payments. Then when you receive your next months statement, you update the interest and principle (doing a split transaction) ? I'll try that out as i'm doing something close to it, but mine seems to involve a few more steps. Mark On Dec 22, 11:41 pm, The Watkinson Family thewatkins...@mac.com wrote: Hi, Mark, I take a different approach to loans than the others that have responded. I like that MoneyWell helps me spend only the money that I have by allocating it to specific purposes. However, as your example demonstrates, finance software should do more than that. I refuse to keep two money softwares to track overall net worth as well as keep spending under control, and I have found that MoneyWell will actually do both. Consider the fact that both your interest payment as well as the principal payment are Car Loan expenses. Here's what I do. When I first pay the bill every month, I don't know how much I am paying towards interest and how much towards principal... I'm just paying the bill. I create this expense as a single transfer from my Checking account to my Car loan account. I put this transfer in the Car Loan bucket. Later, when I receive my loan statement, or look at it on-line, I can see how much of my payment was for interest and how much was for principal. I edit the original transaction, creating a split. I put Interest and Principal in the memo of the two split items. The Interest item should not be a transfer, but it should be assigned to the Car Loan bucket. Principal should be a transfer from Checking to Car loan, and it should also be assigned to your Car Loan bucket. This way, your Car loan account will show approximately what you owe on your car loan as far as the principal is concerned (of course this amount changes every day), and you will be able to track your spending with buckets, as well. Hope this helps. Please let me know if you need further detail. Grace to you, Blair On Dec 22, 2008, at 10:08 PM, mhadja...@gmail.com wrote: My monthly payment from the bank is lets say 200 bucks. Each month, I pay a different amount, sometimes 225, sometimes 250, sometimes even 300. Now any extra over the 200 goes towards principle. So I can't track a steady cash flow because depending on how much extra money I have left is what I put in towards the car payment. So my 60 month loan should be paid off within 48 months hopefully. Which makes having to do more work in MW to see my remaining loan balance as well as track cash flow. Mark On Dec 22, 9:59 am, Kevin Hoctor ke...@nothirst.com wrote: On Dec
[No Thirst Software] Re: Car Loan
On Dec 23, 2008, at 10:36 AM, mhadja...@gmail.com wrote: As long as moving money from bucket to bucket doesn't affect or 'change' my account flow (checking, savings, money market, cc's, loans, etc), then i'm fine. My checking account should reflect the same as my bank statement. Mark, You can think of the buckets as being a layer above the register level where you balance to your bank statements. Now onto reporting... I would like to know my income to debt ratios, which categories I spend more in, which buckets I don't hit my budget, etc.. More reports and graphs will appear with the 2.0 release. Please send any desired reports layouts to ke...@nothirst.com. I'm working on a list of prioritized formats. Thanks. Peace, Kevin Hoctor ke...@nothirst.com 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 no-thirst-software@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to no-thirst-software+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/no-thirst-software?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[No Thirst Software] Re: Car Loan
My monthly payment from the bank is lets say 200 bucks. Each month, I pay a different amount, sometimes 225, sometimes 250, sometimes even 300. Now any extra over the 200 goes towards principle. So I can't track a steady cash flow because depending on how much extra money I have left is what I put in towards the car payment. So my 60 month loan should be paid off within 48 months hopefully. Which makes having to do more work in MW to see my remaining loan balance as well as track cash flow. Mark On Dec 22, 9:59 am, Kevin Hoctor ke...@nothirst.com wrote: On Dec 21, 2008, at 7:01 PM, mhadja...@gmail.com wrote: Maybe i'm missing something, but my interest goes down each payment as I'm paying more towards principle. It also changes depending on how many days sooner my payment clears. The reason for tracking is to see how much money is leaving my checking account each month, as well as the remaining principle left to pay my auto loan. When I receive my statement, it tells me the prior months interest payment, which I tack on to the remaining auto loan balance. So the actual amount owed for my vehicle isn't exact, but its within 100 bucks typically. But your loan payments are the same all the time, correct? And this is what comes out of your checking account each month so this is what you are trying to track to control cash flow, right? What I am saying is, tracking the principal and interest is fine but excessive work because you are not affecting it unless you decide to pay more than you calculated loan payment. If you are going to do that, then you still will have a static amount going to your loan each month and you just have to check with the bank to see what you balance is prior to your last payment because it will get paid off early. I'm trying to learn this program and use it to my advantage, but I feel like i'm struggling more to figure this out and having to hold back from a lot of the 2.0 features. MoneyWell 2.0 will have some great additions but the core process of managing your cash flow better is already in place. If this is what you're trying to accomplish or you just enjoy a cleaner register manager, then MoneyWell 1.4 should be helpful. Peace, Kevin Hoctor ke...@nothirst.com 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 no-thirst-software@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to no-thirst-software+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/no-thirst-software?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[No Thirst Software] Re: Car Loan
Hi, Mark, I take a different approach to loans than the others that have responded. I like that MoneyWell helps me spend only the money that I have by allocating it to specific purposes. However, as your example demonstrates, finance software should do more than that. I refuse to keep two money softwares to track overall net worth as well as keep spending under control, and I have found that MoneyWell will actually do both. Consider the fact that both your interest payment as well as the principal payment are Car Loan expenses. Here's what I do. When I first pay the bill every month, I don't know how much I am paying towards interest and how much towards principal... I'm just paying the bill. I create this expense as a single transfer from my Checking account to my Car loan account. I put this transfer in the Car Loan bucket. Later, when I receive my loan statement, or look at it on-line, I can see how much of my payment was for interest and how much was for principal. I edit the original transaction, creating a split. I put Interest and Principal in the memo of the two split items. The Interest item should not be a transfer, but it should be assigned to the Car Loan bucket. Principal should be a transfer from Checking to Car loan, and it should also be assigned to your Car Loan bucket. This way, your Car loan account will show approximately what you owe on your car loan as far as the principal is concerned (of course this amount changes every day), and you will be able to track your spending with buckets, as well. Hope this helps. Please let me know if you need further detail. Grace to you, Blair On Dec 22, 2008, at 10:08 PM, mhadja...@gmail.com wrote: My monthly payment from the bank is lets say 200 bucks. Each month, I pay a different amount, sometimes 225, sometimes 250, sometimes even 300. Now any extra over the 200 goes towards principle. So I can't track a steady cash flow because depending on how much extra money I have left is what I put in towards the car payment. So my 60 month loan should be paid off within 48 months hopefully. Which makes having to do more work in MW to see my remaining loan balance as well as track cash flow. Mark On Dec 22, 9:59 am, Kevin Hoctor ke...@nothirst.com wrote: On Dec 21, 2008, at 7:01 PM, mhadja...@gmail.com wrote: Maybe i'm missing something, but my interest goes down each payment as I'm paying more towards principle. It also changes depending on how many days sooner my payment clears. The reason for tracking is to see how much money is leaving my checking account each month, as well as the remaining principle left to pay my auto loan. When I receive my statement, it tells me the prior months interest payment, which I tack on to the remaining auto loan balance. So the actual amount owed for my vehicle isn't exact, but its within 100 bucks typically. But your loan payments are the same all the time, correct? And this is what comes out of your checking account each month so this is what you are trying to track to control cash flow, right? What I am saying is, tracking the principal and interest is fine but excessive work because you are not affecting it unless you decide to pay more than you calculated loan payment. If you are going to do that, then you still will have a static amount going to your loan each month and you just have to check with the bank to see what you balance is prior to your last payment because it will get paid off early. I'm trying to learn this program and use it to my advantage, but I feel like i'm struggling more to figure this out and having to hold back from a lot of the 2.0 features. MoneyWell 2.0 will have some great additions but the core process of managing your cash flow better is already in place. If this is what you're trying to accomplish or you just enjoy a cleaner register manager, then MoneyWell 1.4 should be helpful. Peace, Kevin Hoctor ke...@nothirst.com 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 no-thirst-software@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to no-thirst-software+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/no-thirst-software?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[No Thirst Software] Re: Car Loan
I was messing around with iBank and it seems to do what I want, however, I'm still willing to give MW a shot till the end of the week. What I want to know is my principle balance on the car. I don't need it down to the exact dollar, as this amount will change on a daily basis since that's how interest is calculated with this loan. However, I would like it to be more ballpark. So updating it once a month is sufficient. My starting balance is a -xx,xxx So what your saying is, when you make the payment, you move X dollars from your checking into your car loan bucket. Since I pay mine differently each month, I can't really budget for this, or can I? I have to make at least (eg, $350.00) - anything more goes towards principle like I said. So should I set my budget for 350, or should I make it lets say double this amount? Most likely I don't plan on making more than double payments. Then when you receive your next months statement, you update the interest and principle (doing a split transaction) ? I'll try that out as i'm doing something close to it, but mine seems to involve a few more steps. Mark On Dec 22, 11:41 pm, The Watkinson Family thewatkins...@mac.com wrote: Hi, Mark, I take a different approach to loans than the others that have responded. I like that MoneyWell helps me spend only the money that I have by allocating it to specific purposes. However, as your example demonstrates, finance software should do more than that. I refuse to keep two money softwares to track overall net worth as well as keep spending under control, and I have found that MoneyWell will actually do both. Consider the fact that both your interest payment as well as the principal payment are Car Loan expenses. Here's what I do. When I first pay the bill every month, I don't know how much I am paying towards interest and how much towards principal... I'm just paying the bill. I create this expense as a single transfer from my Checking account to my Car loan account. I put this transfer in the Car Loan bucket. Later, when I receive my loan statement, or look at it on-line, I can see how much of my payment was for interest and how much was for principal. I edit the original transaction, creating a split. I put Interest and Principal in the memo of the two split items. The Interest item should not be a transfer, but it should be assigned to the Car Loan bucket. Principal should be a transfer from Checking to Car loan, and it should also be assigned to your Car Loan bucket. This way, your Car loan account will show approximately what you owe on your car loan as far as the principal is concerned (of course this amount changes every day), and you will be able to track your spending with buckets, as well. Hope this helps. Please let me know if you need further detail. Grace to you, Blair On Dec 22, 2008, at 10:08 PM, mhadja...@gmail.com wrote: My monthly payment from the bank is lets say 200 bucks. Each month, I pay a different amount, sometimes 225, sometimes 250, sometimes even 300. Now any extra over the 200 goes towards principle. So I can't track a steady cash flow because depending on how much extra money I have left is what I put in towards the car payment. So my 60 month loan should be paid off within 48 months hopefully. Which makes having to do more work in MW to see my remaining loan balance as well as track cash flow. Mark On Dec 22, 9:59 am, Kevin Hoctor ke...@nothirst.com wrote: On Dec 21, 2008, at 7:01 PM, mhadja...@gmail.com wrote: Maybe i'm missing something, but my interest goes down each payment as I'm paying more towards principle. It also changes depending on how many days sooner my payment clears. The reason for tracking is to see how much money is leaving my checking account each month, as well as the remaining principle left to pay my auto loan. When I receive my statement, it tells me the prior months interest payment, which I tack on to the remaining auto loan balance. So the actual amount owed for my vehicle isn't exact, but its within 100 bucks typically. But your loan payments are the same all the time, correct? And this is what comes out of your checking account each month so this is what you are trying to track to control cash flow, right? What I am saying is, tracking the principal and interest is fine but excessive work because you are not affecting it unless you decide to pay more than you calculated loan payment. If you are going to do that, then you still will have a static amount going to your loan each month and you just have to check with the bank to see what you balance is prior to your last payment because it will get paid off early. I'm trying to learn this program and use it to my advantage, but I feel like i'm struggling more to figure this out and having to hold back from a lot of the 2.0
[No Thirst Software] Re: Car Loan
On Dec 19, 2008, at 7:27 PM, mhadja...@gmail.com wrote: What if you do not know your total amount left (with interest). I also do principle reductions. That was the reason why I wanted to split up both principle payments and interest payments. Mark, You should be able to get a current balance for your loan from either the latest statement or the bank's website. By having the principle starting balance, then adding interest each month, as well as subtracting the monthly payments, that'll show that i'm paying the loan down. If I don't create an 'Interest' bucket, i'm not sure how that will affect my cash flow reporting. Are the buckets needed for reporting? They are needed for reporting but the interest isn't something you can pay less or more of so it doesn't directly affect your cash flow. If you want to break up your payment into principal and interest with a split, that will work. It just may be unnecessary since the bank reports total interest paid on loans. Peace, Kevin Hoctor ke...@nothirst.com 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 no-thirst-software@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to no-thirst-software+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/no-thirst-software?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
