"Doug" wrote:

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Doug - 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.

Jason

"Doug" <Doug[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:B83EC4BF-B43E-4781-884F-0FF58FD56B6B[at]microsoft.com...
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Enter an amount per year. Like it or not, Money will average it out on a
monthly basis and report that you're over-budget on the month you actually
have an expense. You just have to know how it's doing it, and ignore that
message. When looking at the budget summary, choose 'This Year' as a view,
to review those type items.
--
Chris Cowles
Gainesville, FL

My questions is, how do you budget for things such as "car repair" or other
items that you are not sure of when you will need to spend the money or how
much will need to be spent; however, you are interested in keeping track of
how much money has accrued.

For example, I budget $100.00/month on Car Repair. This money may not be
used for several months; however, I need to know how much I have saved for
car repair when a problem does occurr. In six months, I should be able to see
that $600.00 in my savings account is dedicated to Car Repair.

I haven't found a way to do this in money.
Any suggestions are greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time!

PS- I use the Bills functionality for those reoccurring quartery,
semi-annual, and annual expenses that have fixed due dates and amounts.