There's not much change in 401(k) handling at all.

As for the lifetime plan, look at all of the reports in the results area,
especially the "how much will I be saving report. Perhaps something
unexpected is happening -- such as all money left over at the end of the
year will be saved.

--

"harrelsonesq" <harrelsonesq2[at]yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:e5cQkAxiFHA.2484[at]TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl...
- quote -

My Lifetime Planner says Congratulations! You have enough money to live
forever after you retire!, which I am 100% certain is not the case. Even
with the (severely overrated, IMO) "miracle of compounding," I don't see
that happening with the relatively small amount I currently have invested.

Although my rollover IRA has done better than I expected, & certainly a lot
better than the same money did in my former employer's 401(k). Now if I
could only get my current employer's 401(k) to work properly in Money. I'm
still on 05, because I don't make a decision about upgrading until I read
this group for a couple of months.

Has anyone using 06 noticed any improvement in the way it handles 401(k)'s?

Susan
"Jeff P" <jeffpNO[at]SPAMruralramp.net> wrote in message
news:11di0n3kajjda6[at]corp.supernews.com...
- quote -

"harrelsonesq" <harrelsonesq2[at]yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:%23VOkQbbiFHA.576[at]TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl...
- quote -

I have strange things happen like that too.

I haven't tried it recently, but the Debt Reduction Planner seems to think
that I can afford to pay off about $6000 of debt tomrrow even though I don't
have $6000 in cash and even if I did I would probably want to keep at least
$2000 or $3000 on hand in case of unexpected expenses.

I have tried everything to fix the DRP and it just won't work anymore. I
don't know what broke it, but it ticks me off.

Last night I was playing with the savings planner. At first I couldn't find
it. Then I finally was able to get into the thing only to find that
Microsoft had a nice little disclaimer that basically said something to the
effect of, "Are you kidding?! You make enough money to save diddly squat.
Beat it kid!" Now to try to proove it wrong.

-Jeff

My issues are not nearly as global. You might even call them nitpicky. I am
using M05, and have a Budget and DRP set up. I have a ton of credit cards
with balances. Some of them I buy stuff with too.

The Advisor periodically pops up with the following nag: "Try not to charge
stuff on credit cards you are trying to pay off." (I'm paraphrasing,
obviously.) What triggers this message is the monthly interest payment on a
particular ONE of those many cards. It is not even the biggest monthly
interest payment.

For some reason, I can't help trying to deduce the logic that causes weird
stuff like that to happen.

Susan



"Jeff P" <jeffpNO[at]SPAMruralramp.net> wrote in message
news:11dfqij7r5djka1[at]corp.supernews.com...
- quote -

Some of us have long lobbied to get extensibility of the database and the
ability to define scheduled amounts as functions of data with some kind of
Excel-like grammar. Don't think you're the first to suggest this. (See
http://umpmfaq.info/WishList.htm for some history of my wish list including
both these items.)

The problem is that Microsoft sees no money to be made in the huge
development and support costs that would be associated with doing this.
That's why we get the dumbed down Essential * stuff in M05/6 with the
notation, everywhere they can put it in M05 (it's a lot less places in
M06--maybe my pissing on this rock for a year had some effect) that this
dumbing down is what Most Users Prefer(tm).

"Jeff P" <jeffpNO[at]SPAMruralramp.net> wrote in message
news:11dfqij7r5djka1[at]corp.supernews.com...
- quote -

"Dick Watson" <littlegreengecko[at]mind-enufalready-spring.com> wrote in
message news:esb%23cn6bFHA.2756[at]tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
- quote -

I think I understand his question, as I've asked myself the same thing in
the past. Repent34's probably going into the Bills & Deposits screen and
scheduling his credit card bill (or whatever) to be paid at $50.00 per
month. He also can see in the corresponding account register that he only
has a balance of $500, so logically in slightly over 5 months (with added
interest possibly), the account will be paid off. So why would you still
have the payment scheduled after there is no further balance to pay? I
think he would like to know why Microsoft Money doesn't just "figure this
out" and automatically remove bills from the payment schedule as they
obviously become paid off.

The Debt Reduction Planner does this, sort of. But, you have to set
everything up in the DRP and follow the plan. Any changes and you basically
have to go through the whole wizard from scratch again. It doesn't to my
knowledge allow you to open up a specific payment that the DRP automatically
schedules and make changes directly to it. The DRP also sucks because it
fails to comprehend how credit cards work with all their promotional rates
and BS.

I would like to see the DRP and the Bills & Deposits feature allow a much
greater flexibility in the definition of how payment amounts are calculated
and when things should be scheduled or skipped. The "fixed amount",
"estimate because amount varies" and "estimate based on last so many
transactions" just simply SUCK. This is really only useful on subscriptions
to services (like your satellite TV bill for instance.) Utility bills would
make more sense to estimate based on the season or the amount from this
month of the previous year. (You can sort of simulate this by scheduling 12
yearly transactions instead of 1 monthly transaction).

For financial TRANSFERS such as credit card payments, the limited
functionality of this program's scheduling abilities just, in my opinion,
absolutely sucks beyond any question. Why can't I click on a button that
would pull up a variety of options to define how to calculate the amount
due? For instance, "If balance of account X is less than so-many$$ then
payment amount = balance of account X, otherwise payment amount = % of
account X balance". This way if the credit card bill is paid in full,
presto--no transactions to pay. If I use the card again for something else,
automatically the payment is scheduled again without having to back into the
Bills & Deposits screen and reschedule it manually. To me this would be a
very simple concept so I don't understand why it is not included in the
program.

Additionally on credit card accounts I would like there to be a "transaction
type" flag, in which I could classify transactions based on all the
promotional BS crap that the credit card companies come up with. For
example, my Discover Card has two seperate balance transfers on it which are
0.0% APR for the life of the balance as long as beginning six months after
the initial date of each respective balance transfer I begin making at least
1 purchase on the card per month per transfer. So if one transfer was made 3
months before the other, then 6 months after the first transfer I have to
make 1 monthly purchase, and 3 months later I have to begin making two
monthly purchases. I wish to have these two balance transfer transactions
flagged and have their attributing balance tracked seperately from the
future purchases balance. I then would like to be able to go into the Bills
& Deposits screen and schedule a transaction payable to Discover Card on a
monthly basis which would be for the category "Credit Card Interest", and a
payment amount defined as "Average daily balance of transaction type:
Purchases between 27th of previous month and 26th of current month on
account: Discover Card multiplied by (PRIME RATE + 5.99%) / 12. If this
resulting figure is less than 50 cents, then I wish to be able to instruct
the program to round it up to the "50 cent minimum finance charge".

Then all I would have to do is remember to use the card to buy $1.00 worth
of gas twice a month and let the program take care of everything else. The
payments are automatically deducted from the checking account. The finance
charges would be properly recorded... the transactions would be downloaded
via background banking and matched to the register, account reconciled, and
I'd be good to go. All I'd have to do then is watch the balance gradually
fall at 50 cents a month in finance charges, while I instead pay off other
bills.

I also would like to be able to setup spending alerts based on the method of
payment for certain types of transactions instead of just the expense
category. For example, certain credit cards have incentive programs that max
out after a certain limit. I'd like the spending limit alert to notify me
when I'm approaching the limit of the incentive program, so i know to switch
to a different card. Other cards have spending "minimums", which could work
the same way. Take MBNA AAA Visa for instance. You get a 5% rebate on all
gas purchases but it's limited to 2% of your total transactions for a given
month. I'd like to have something visible when I go to record transactions
or review the register which would show me what my progress is as far as
maximizing the 5% gas rebate. That is, if I have purchased more than 1.5
times as much in gas as I did for other categories, I'd like to know the
shortfall in terms of a dollar amount, so I know approximately how much more
in regular purchases I should make on that card before switching to say, a
card that has some other incentive program like airline miles or what not.

But then, I guess I want to much because I would like the program to figure
things out for me, instead of me just entering everything manually and
looking at it in a pretty interface.

So... To answer Repent34's question -- attempt to use the debt reduction
planner. It might schedule the transactions fairly close to what you want,
and know to make them stop when the card is paid off. But, if it annoys you
further then you'll probably end up just having to manually remove the
scheduled transaction once the card actually does get paid to $0.00.


-Jeff

I'm trying to understand your question.

What/where are you expecting to see the bill get paid off? Where are you
looking expecting the payment to not be going on forever? What are you
seeing indicating it goes on forever?

"Repent34" <Repent34[at]anon.postalias> wrote in message
news:%23vEDzF4bFHA.1200[at]TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
- quote -

In microsoft.public.money, Repent34 wrote:

- quote -

I would edit the scheduled payment series in the Bills summary by
right-clicking. I would increase the estimated amount, mark it as an
estimated value, and not have it automatically entered into the
register. Some people might have better luck than I with the
automatically entered payments. Some others may prefer to use the
debt reduction planner. There is no single right way.

Somehow a correct SPECIAL transfer or cc payment needs to be
entered. Whether you enter this manually, or edit a downloaded
transaction, it should get entered somehow.

Pay the whole balance, or as much as you can handle.

When I setup a credit card in Money2005 Deluxe, the category is under the
"special" section and the listing is "credit card payment" so that looks
correct. But, if I have say, a $500 balance on the card and pay $50 a month
in a scheduled/recurring bill payment, the bill never gets paid off. Under
this scenerio, the bill would be paid off in 10 months or so, but the
scheduled payment of $50 goes on forever. Is this because I need to somehow
do a transfer of money?? I followed the wizard to setup the credit card
account, and it even seems that it asked me if I wanted to setup a recurring
payment for it, which I did, now I have this scenerio.

any thoughts?

chris