On Jun 4, 2009, at 1:38 AM, CarmineM wrote:
> Let me explain why past allocations are meaningful to me, perhaps you > might > help me finding a better way to manage this all. > > I need to track past flows because I have already saved for bills yet > to come. > > E.g. > > Usually my electricity bill has a mean value of 90 every two months, > so each month I save 45. > What happens is that, from time to time, the bill's value I have to > pay is over the mean value of 90. > If I start tracking money flows from June 1st, I will have 45 > allocated for electricity and when the bill > arrives my electricity bucket will go below 0, which is absolutley > false since I still have money left from past > months rollovers. > > Makes any sense? Piece of cake. You've set up MoneyWell to allocate $45 to your electricity bucket every month. That's correct. Since you're having MoneyWell keep track of your allocations(Moneyflows) from June 1, and your electricity bill is due in June, then yes, your electricity bucket needs $45 more in it to pay a $90 bill. If you happen to have other expenses that need to accumulate over months before being paid, such as property taxes, then this applies to those as well. 1. You do not need to go back several months so that MoneyWell can do the automatic allocating of the money to those buckets. That's way too cumbersome. 2. I will assume you have the money in your checking account, or savings, or your mattress, as a result of using whatever app or method you used before MoneyWell. 3. Since you are in possession of this money, you can allocate it into your buckets, manually. This is a one-time chore just so your buckets are filled to the level they should be. 4. Using your electricity example, MoneyWell allocated $45 for June automatically, but you need $45 more to pay the bill. 5. Whatever account contains the money, just drag that bucket to your electricity bucket and specify $45 in the popup window. > >>> One more question. How am I supposed to track the expenses for >>> which I >>> can't (and don't want to) allocate any money? >> >> You lost me here. Why can't you allocate money for an expense? > > I admit the question wasn't clear at all, I beg your pardon. Honestly > it hasn't much sense either. > > Usually, those are expenses for which I cannot predict the allocations > and that I get a reimbursement for from my employer. Since they are > very frequent, I liked the idea to have them visible together with > other buckets. Here's how I handle this type of situation. 1. You obviously have to have the money to pay these expenses before you get reimbursed. 2. Go back several months and determine the maximum amount you've paid for these expenses. 3. Using this maximum amount, make a one-time allocation to this expense bucket manually using drag'n''drop. 4. Do not setup any automatic allocation for this job expense bucket. You'll see why below. So now you have money in your job expense bucket to cover those payments you make during the money. As you keep making payments, the bucket amount keeps declining. 1. You employer now reimburses you for those job related expenses. 2. This is not income, it does not go into your salary bucket. 3. When you make the deposit into your checking account, assign it to your job expense bucket. This will fill it back up to your original amount you had when you started. Remember, every bucket that has money in it is money you have in your possession, unspent. A bucket may be specified as an expense bucket, but it's still money you have, just as if you had a real envelope called job expenses with $100 of cash in it. During the month you paid job related expenses from this cash envelope, all you did was have your boss fill it back up. Terry --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
