Ross Werner wrote:
Gnucash can totally due that. You add accounts, put money in when you
get it, and take it out when you spend it.
What I want is more something like this:
[snip]
Let's say I get a $10 paycheck ... I enter $10 into the Checking
Account, and then I can *also* record somewhere that $5 of that money is
earmarked for grocery spending, and $4 is earmarked for ComputerToys.
Then later one when I spend the $5 on groceries and $2 on ComputerToys,
I can look at some sort of report/balance sheet/whatever that tells me
that I know have $0 left earmarked for grocery spending, and $2 left
earmarked for ComputerToys. Come next $10 paycheck I do the same thing,
so now I have $5 in the grocery fund and $6 in the ComputerToys fund.
Now, what I *could* do is set up all my budget "earmarked" categories as
actuall GnuCash accounts, and instead of putting money into the
"Checking Account" when I get paid, divvy them up into these different
accounts. However, that makes reconciling the books a pain in the butt
because I'll have to add up all my assets and then add up all my
"earmarked" categories and make sure they match, and if they don't, good
luck trying to find which category has money missing and why.
I may just completely misunderstand what you are trying to do, but it
seems like you could just add subaccounts to your Gnucash checking
account to accomplish exactly this. Instead of putting your money
straight into checking, you put 5 dollars into checking-->groceries, etc.
Viewing the checking account shows an aggregate of all the transactions
made in subaccounts. You can also view subaccounts individually to
verify that, of all your money in checking, you still have $2 left for
computer stuff.
Jordy
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