I agree - downloads and Budget screens took much longer to complete and
forget about having Spend Tracker on your Home page - it will never load.

"Chris Cowles" <spam_magnet[at]remove-me-bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:ua$rCzBMGHA.2604[at]TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
- quote -

"Jason" <Jason[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:A1EE807C-CA73-4185-9102-256622844EED[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

Spend Tracker is also a serious drag on performance.

"Chris Cowles" wrote:

- quote -

No good. Saving Planner is a joke and Spend Tracker is not flexible enough.

Glad you are having fun with the budget!

I use Money 2002 which does not have the so called Essential Budget, it only
has what is now called the Advanced budget. I don't have a Spend Tracker
or Savings Goals as far as I know but they may have different names now. I
use lots of reports and the budget and now the cash flow tool which Chris
got me using about 6 months ago. Money has a few annoying problems but it
is great software.

Regards

Bill Wood



"Jason" <Jason[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:E5D705F7-EFD6-4F9C-8E62-FE1235C2846C[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

"Jason" <Jason[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:E5D705F7-EFD6-4F9C-8E62-FE1235C2846C[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

The Spending Tracker can cause significant performance problems, because
it's doing constant table scans.

If you find value in Savings Goals, please report back. I've never found it
useful.

--
Chris Cowles
Gainesville, FL

William - You are "Right on the Money" so to speak. I setup a budget with the
Advance Budget feature and love it. I'm setting up the Spend Tracker and
Savings Goals right now.

Do you use Advanced or Essential Budget?

Many Thanks to you and Chris for the replies and advice on how to get
maximum funtionality from using Money.

Jason

"William R Wood" wrote:

- quote -

Thanks for the feedback and insight.

"Chris Cowles" wrote:

- quote -

"Jason" <Jason[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:4819EBFD-434B-45B6-A925-FF5ACB305084[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

Overall you will be within your budget since you only spent $21 so far but
you will be overbudget for the 3rd month.


- quote -

Yes.


- quote -

Actually the money is available since you have allocated a total of $60 for
the first 3 months and only spent $21 so far. Money's budget report will
show whatever you need. If you display a report covering the first 3
months, it will show a total budget of $60 with $21 spent to date. If you
display an annual report Money will show a budgeted amount of $240 with $21
spent so far. If you display a report just for the 3rd month, Money will
show $20 budget but $21 spent so you are over budget for that month.

I suggest that you try the budget, it is very useful and I rely on it on a
daily basis to control our finances.

Regards

Bill Wood




- quote -

"Jason" <Jason[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:4819EBFD-434B-45B6-A925-FF5ACB305084[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

Unedited, yes, but there is a function in the budget that allows you to
reallocate from one period to another.

An easier thing to do is just to change your view of the budget. First look
at the 'current month' or 'past month', whatever you're trying to analyze.
Ignore the categories that you no occur irregularly and analyze those that
occur regularly. After that round, revise the view to 'Current Year' and
analyze those categories that occur irregularly.

It's not hard to eyeball the amounts to see if you're on track. There may be
predictable future expenses that you didn't account specifically for, such
as the car needing tires. If you budgeted $1000 for car maintenance for the
entire year, and the current year view shows you already spend $700, you'll
know you only have another $300 to spend on tires before exceeding your
budget.
--
Chris Cowles
Gainesville, FL

Hi William - Thanks for the response. What happens if I budget $20 a month
and do not spend any money for the first two months but spend $21 on the
third month?
Will Money show me as being over budget for the third month?

Will the budget process show that the money is not available?

"William R Wood" wrote:

- quote -

Jason,

I can sort of follow what you are doing but it sounds pretty convoluted and
confusing.

Why don't you simply use Money's budget feature and create a budget category
for Car Maint, etc. Money's budget reports show you how much you have spent
to date compared to your budgeted amount for each category without going
through all the work you have described.


Regards,

Bill Wood
Fountain Hills, AZ

"Teri" wrote:

- quote -

Teri - This is how I plan to start tracking future budget items such as car
maintenance.

First setup a cash account called Car Maintenance. The starting balance for
this account should be a negative number. When you spend money on car
maintenance log the amount as a debit in the account from which it was spent
and as a credit in the Car Maintenance account. The negative balance in the
Car Maintenance account is what you have left to spend in that account. This
account should be reset to zero every year. If you want to show a certain
amount that is accounted monthly then add the amount you want to budget to
the negative amount every month (this will help keep your total available $$$
in check). Mark all accounts that you will live from day-to-day and your
savings where the Car Maintenance money is accounted for as a Favorite
account. On the Banking tab -> Account List -> Common Tasks -> Sort account
list by - select Favorites first. Now you will have a running balance of your
daily/monthly funds with the Car Maintenance account subtracting from your
money. As you spend the money on car maintenance debit the amount from the
account from which the money came using the category "Automobile :
Maintenance" (or whatever you use for tracking car maintenance). Credit the
Car Maintenance account for the same amount as a Transfer or some other
category that you do not track in your budget and reports.

For example: I budget 26.00 dollars a month for car maintenance and here's
how I do it. I create a cash account named Car Maintenance, mark it as a
favorite, with a starting negative balance of (26.00). Month one comes and
goes and I spend nothing on car maintenance so the Car Maintenance account
still shows (26.00) so my total spend-able income accounts for that (26.00).
Month two starts - I increase (actually decrease) my Car Maintenance account
by adding another (26.00) so now my Car Maintenance account is (52.00). Lets
say I go and get an oil change on my car and that I pay for it using funds
from Checking account 1. I go home startup Money and enter a debit in
Checking account 1 for (32.00) to Pete's Oil-n-Lube with category Automobile
: Maintenance. I then add a credit to my Car Maintenance account for the same
amount, in this case 32.00 dollars with no category (to keep the transaction
from showing up in budget reports). Now my Car Maintenance account shows that
I have (20.00) dollars which tells me that I only have 20 dollars to spend on
car maintenance in my account.

With this tracking method you cannot look at your $$$ in individual accounts
but instead you must look at the Subtotal by grouping your accounts. I use
"favorites" for this purpose, but you could use "name" or whatever you
wanted. The idea is to only group accounts from which you will be spending
money on a daily basis, not long term savings accounts or investment
accounts. This way, your subtotal of grouped accounts will accurately reflect
what you have as spendable income on both daily transactions and budgeted
transactions.

This is what I am currently planning to implement. If any one out there has
a better method or sees a flaw with this plan please let me know.

Teri - If you've have found and implemented something better - please share.

Thanks,
Jason

Teri,
I appreciate that you want to have money allocated for all your
expenses, but think out WHY you need to do that. You know how much
money you have coming in each year. (paycheck, interest, etc.) You have
identified your big expenses. If you use Money to track in detail your
expenses for ONE year via categories and subcategories you can MANAGE
your finances without requiring a bunch of real savings accounts that
do nothing but add confusion. You need a checking account and a savings
account. The savings account should hold all the money you DON"T need
for the next month. The checking account should have all the money you
DO need for the next month. You make a transfer from savings to
checking each month as needed. Your paycheck money all goes into your
savings account initially. Somehow, I have always thought that this so
called envelope budgeting was a crutch. For instance, the banks created
the so called Christmas Club account to save money weekly so you could
pull it all out at Christmas time for gifts. You have to decide how
much you want in the account at the end anyway, so why can't you just
leave it in your savings account earning interest until you need it to
pay for gifts? It is all physological. By trying to "force" yourself to
save using all these extra savings accounts you are missing the real
purpose of Money and how it can really help you. Money even has a cash
flow part of the program in the Deluxe version that can help if you
want it to and are willing to understand how it works. Good luck. Steve

Please contact me at if you ever get an answer because I have the same
problem,

"Teri" wrote:

- quote -

On Sat, 9 Apr 2005 22:25:05 -0700, "Teri"
<Teri[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

- quote -

the Quicken newsgroup - It was similar to what I wanted to do. Took
my concepts and what he said and created an excel spreadsheet that
automates the tracking. I put in my reoccuring expenses for the year
and it calculates a monthly amount you need to save to meet the
spending. You can easily see what months you may not have saved
enough $ yet - an issue if you have a large number of expenses early
in the year. In that case, you need to pre-load the account with some
$$$ to make all your months positive. At the end of the year, you
should be left with that same amount in the account so your pre-load
for next year is already taken care of. This is a long-term
multi-year plan. Thus, my MS2004 monthly transaction is a Xfer to a
savings acount of my monthly amount and then scheduled xfers back to
checking of my planned amount. My savings account never goes Negative
unless I had an unexpected expense or a large overage - rarely happens
as these are yearly expenses!

The "fine" tracking is in the spread sheet - In Money - I know the
funds are there because the fine tracking is in the spread sheet.
Note - I always do the xfer to savings and another back - even if need
the amount in checking right away - this lets me print a transaction
report into/out of the savings account and I should see the same
details I have in the spreadsheet.

Any way - here is the post by Dick Weaver in
"alt.comp.software.financial.quicken" newsgroup. (ignore the
references to Quicken - it's the concept to look at). Also - View
using a Fixed Font for the columns to line up!!!

===== Begin Quote =============================
Ok, so you've got a number of large payments on an annual cycle
and you want to be sure the money is in the bank for each payment
when needed. How do you do it with Quicken?

To start, we'll use pencil and paper to make a grid of payments
(you can use Excel if you want, but pencil & paper is adequate).
A row for each payment. Columns correspond to paychecks; entered
in a column are the payments to made when that paycheck is
received. 12, 26, 52, ... columns matching your payroll. We'll
use 12 for examples.

For example, if you receive paychecks at the end of each month
and have a payment of $250 due June 20, then record that bill in
the 5th (May) column - the money to pay this bill must be
available when the May check has been deposited - the June
payroll check cannot help. The $250 payment will be written when
the May paycheck is recieved even though you may not mail it
until June 10 or so.

Our completed grid looks something like this
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
.... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ....
AutoIns 0 0 400 0 0 0 0 0 400 0 0 0
Vac. 0 0 0 0 0 2400 0 0 0 0 0 0
PropTax 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1200 0
LifeIns 0 100 0 0 0 0 0 100 0 0 0 0
Util. 200 200 150 130 80 20 40 50 70 120 160 180

Notice the inclusion of utility (gas, electric) payments. Even
though the exact amounts are not know, the approximate amounts
are and if we don't provide for utility costs then the large
differences (almost $200) may have us feeling broke in the winter
and flush in the summer.

Total the columns
200 300 550 130 80 2420 40 150 470 120 1360 180

Total all columns 6000

So we average 500/mo in payments

Assume a beginning January balance of 0 and calculate the ending
balances for each month

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Jan 0
+500 +500 +500 +500 +500 +500 +500 +500 +500 +500 +500 +500
-200 -300 -550 -130 -80-2420 -40 -150 -470 -120-1360 -180

end 300 500 450 820 1240 -680 -220 130 160 540 -320 0

Well, the ending December balance, 0, is the same as the starting
January balance so we likely did the math correctly. The
negative ending balances, however, tell us that our assumed Jan
beginning balance, 0, is not correct. It should be 680, the
largest negative balance. So, try again

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Jan 680
+500 +500 +500 +500 +500 +500 +500 +500 +500 +500 +500 +500
-200 -300 -550 -130 -80-2420 -40 -150 -470 -120-1360 -180

end 980 1180 1130 1500 1920 0 460 810 840 1220 360 680

Better. Putting together with our original grid, we have our
complete picture:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
.... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ....
AutoIns 0 0 400 0 0 0 0 0 400 0 0 0
Vac. 0 0 0 0 0 2400 0 0 0 0 0 0
PropTax 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1200 0
LifeIns 0 100 0 0 0 0 0 100 0 0 0 0
Util. 200 200 150 130 80 20 40 50 70 120 160 180

Jan 680
+500 +500 +500 +500 +500 +500 +500 +500 +500 +500 +500 +500
-200 -300 -550 -130 -80-2420 -40 -150 -470 -120-1360 -180

end 980 1180 1130 1500 1920 0 460 810 840 1220 360 680


Now, at last, we get to Quicken. Lets assume we've just
deposited the February paycheck and that there is already in the
Checking account register (from January's processing) an entry

1/31 payee:Annualized costs cat:[Checking] amt:-980

its that entry that "hid" $980.

After the paycheck deposit, pay two bills

2/28 payee:ABC LifeInsurance cat:LifeIns amt:-100
2/28 payeeEF Gas & Electric cat:Utilities amt:-187.23

Then replace the 1/31 Annualized costs entry with a new one.

2/28 payee:Annualized costs cat:[Checking] amt:-1180

Simple. Do your homework on a piece of paper, then at each
payroll deposit, pay the bills (which you would do anyway) and
update the Annualized cost entry. That is, THERE IS ONLY ONE
QUICKEN ENTRY to update each month in order to provide for
annualized costs. And there is no excess cash requirement, as is
common with savings goals/envelopes.

The annualized cost entry will affect your Net Worth reports.
You may want to date it differently. For example, instead of
1/31 in the example above, use 2/1.

There is a side benefit to all of this. Some payment schedules
can be changed. Look at your grid and see where you can make
changes to reduce the need for large cash balances (OK, Excel
makes it easy to test changes).



dick w

btw: Do I use this method? No, I've long passed the point where
it was necessary. I USED to do it, but that was long before
Quicken. So this is a description of that method, updated for
Quicken.
===== End Quote ========================================

I have already setup accounts in Money for the checking account, vacations,
xmas, and misc savings account. I added my paycheck and the deposits into the
accounts. I am trying to track multiple savings goals within each of the
savings accounts. It is a much more fine tuned tracking that I am trying to
accomplish.

"Mark Horn" wrote:

- quote -

On 2005-04-09, Teri <Teri[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
- quote -

Ok. Well, this should be very easy to track in Money. You simply
create all of those accounts in Money. Make sure that they're in
budget accounts. Then in Bills & Deposits, create your paycheck.
In the "Deductions After Taxes" tab, add all of the transfers to
each of the savings accounts.

My accounts are listed below. My paycheck gets automatically deposited and
divided among each of these accounts as I specify through my bank.

Checking account
Vacation savings account
(multiple reoccuring events each year that this money is divided
between)
Christmas savings acccount
(divided among xmas and kids birthdays)
Misc savings account
(multiple reoccuring things - car insurance, home insurance, car
maintenance etc etc)

So, for the misc savings account (for example), I estimate how much each
individual expense will be for a year, add them up and divide that by the
number of paychecks...that is how much gets deposited in the account each
payday. There are occasions when I have to change the amount that is
deposited (expense change or added expense). The envelope budgeting sounds
like it could handle this. I think the closest thing I could do (from what I
have read) is create accounts for each individual expense and do transfers
into them. That could get out of hand though. Sounds like a nightmare to me.

"Dick Watson" wrote:

- quote -

I checked out the threads on envelope budgeting and it is exactly what I am
looking for. Hopefully Money will have that feature someday. Thanks!

"Dick Watson" wrote:

- quote -

Thanks for the information! I will see how I can use the suggestion with my
setup as well as check out the envelop budgeting.

"Evie" wrote:

- quote -