But taxes are listed separately and easily can be excluded from your
estimate of expenses.

2007 broke the automatic calculation of expenses. If on Advanced Budget,
click on the 'estimate my expenses' in LP. You'll see the categories listed
and a 'remaining amount' or some term like that. Use that amount for your
expense estimate. Previous versions did that automatically, IIRC.
--
Chris Cowles
Gainesville, FL


"Kenbob" <Kenbob[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:FC76BB4D-850E-4FA5-9AAB-CEE9AFD7D88B[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

I think you're right. My impression is that the assumptions of the S&S
budget are inconsistent with those of the LP. I think the LP is more
logical.

I think it would be easy for MS to fix that relationship. I don't expect
that to happen before next year, if then.
--
Chris Cowles
Gainesville, FL



"Steve" <sjcohen730[at]aol.com> wrote in message
news:1155687267.227045.325080[at]h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
- quote -

I'm playing around with the Savings & Spending Budget and Lifetime
Planner. I used the budget link in Money 2006 to drive my Living
expense number in the Lifetime Planner. What I NOW find is that number
agrees exactly with my committed expenses in the Savings & Spending
Budget. By just changing budget classifications from committed to fun
or retirement, I effect the Lifetime Planner expenses projection which
has a MAJOR effect on how long my assets last. Additionally, I have
understood that mortgage, income taxes and life insurance payments are
handled separately in the Lifetime Planner and should NOT be part of
Living expense. Is this a correct understanding? If so Money is now
using different concepts and still linking the budget to the Lifetime
planner and just causes MORE confusion for everyone. Steve

"Kenbob" <Kenbob[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:A01B34CB-B7C2-4082-9F38-86A9074D3341[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

That I have too.

- quote -

This I do not see, exactly.

The bar detail (pre-retirement) lists my living expenses (which appears to
includes payroll taxes) Social Security Tax, Medicare Tax, and All Other
Taxes. The All Other Taxes (not broken down) is large enough that it could
be my other payroll taxes (Income, etc), but the bar detail doesn't say
where that number comes from (calculated or otherwise).

Is that what you see?

Man, they've really messed up the budget and life time planner this year.
:-(

Bruce.

I had exactly the same overpronounced tax when I was in advanced budget mode.

"Chris Cowles" wrote:

- quote -

If you're using Advanced Budget, the expense estimate lists taxes
separately. In the new S&S budget, it does not.
--
Chris Cowles
Gainesville, FL



"Bruce Chastain" <bchastain[at]XNOSPAMXhyperfeed.com> wrote in message
news:O$Owv6HwGHA.4384[at]TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
- quote -

I had the old "advanced budget", and then switched to savings and spending
budget. both showed the same results.

Total expenses (from budget) included my tax deductions. Clicking on a
single bar for a given year shows a year's expenses deducted (again,
including the tax deductions) PLUS an additional deduction of calculated
taxes using the effective tax rate.

"Chris Cowles" wrote:

- quote -

"Kenbob" <Kenbob[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:922407A1-4CDE-46C2-994F-45E1E53B8104[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

I also itemize my paycheck. How can I tell if my Lifetime Planner is also
double counting payroll taxes?

Bruce.

Which budget method are you using?

"Kenbob" <Kenbob[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:922407A1-4CDE-46C2-994F-45E1E53B8104[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

Yep, I figured out it was double-calculating taxes for me. Taxes were
showing up in my expense budget (since I itemize my paychecks) and on top of
that it was calculating and deducting my effective tax rate.

I overrided the default calculation for the effective tax rate down to zero,
and the lifetime planner seemed to go closer to normal. Very strange, how it
double-taxes you in Money 2007.

"Chris Cowles" wrote:

- quote -

I think so but, in doing so, they eliminated some functionality that should
have been pretty easy to fix. Like, since they know how much you're saving
and paying for taxes and debt, why not just take it out of income to result
in expenses? Didn't previous versions do that?
--
Chris Cowles
Gainesville, FL


"Dick Watson" <littlegreengecko[at]mind-enufalready-spring.com> wrote in
message news:Of9oNc4tGHA.1224[at]TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
- quote -

"Bruce Chastain" <bachastain[at]XNOSPAMXsbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:OcJbsr4tGHA.148[at]TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
- quote -

For the purposes of the LP, 'obligations' the first few categories
described in the link to the budget. Loan payments, savings, taxes, etc.
What you have left over after that is 'available' to use for expenses.

- quote -

Dunno. Haven't reviewed if it's different in 2007 but in 2006 and earlier,
you can't.

"Dick Watson" <littlegreengecko[at]mind-enufalready-spring.com> wrote in
message news:O9$WxS8tGHA.3392[at]TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
- quote -

Ah, I think I follow you but I don't think I've run in to that yet.

Bruce.

Understand that the issue I am pointing out with autobudget is only apparent
if you are trying to autobudget a category with one or more SCHEDULED
expenses and also has unscheduled expense history. They apparently follow
the logic something like this:

if (scheduledexpenses(category) is not null) then
autobudgetvalue(category) = monthlyaverage(scheduledexpenses(category))
else
autobudgetvalue(category) =
monthlyaverage(transactionhistory(nonDRPaccounts(c ategory)))
endif

The assumption thus being any scheduled expenses for a category=all expenses
for the category. This is probably true for something like a utility
bill/category.

If they had even half a clue, they'd use logic like:

autobudgetvalue(category) =
monthlyaverage(transactionhistory(nonDRPaccounts(c ategory)))

for each item in scheduledexpenses(category)
if (not matchSchedItemInHistory(item)) then
autobudgetvalue(category) += monthlyaverage(scheduledexpenses(item))
endif
endfor

"Bruce Chastain" <bachastain[at]XNOSPAMXsbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:uunVD%234tGHA.3912[at]TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
- quote -

"Dick Watson" <littlegreengecko[at]mind-enufalready-spring.com> wrote in
message news:Of9oNc4tGHA.1224[at]TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
- quote -

I think I've had more luck with the Autobudget function. I select it, clear
all the checkmarks, and then just recheck the ones that make sense to me.
It seems to include all of those fine and the numbers seem to total up
correctly.

- quote -

I haven't seen that either. 95% of all my expenses are put on a Visa and
they do show up in the Autobudget.

- quote -

Other that needing to tweek it from time to time, the AB and LP have been
working well for me up to 2007.

- quote -

From here it looks like they broke it rather than fixing it. I did get the
correct LP Results in 2006 but so far 2007 isn't looking good. If I can
remove the one last transfer out of the budget as an expense, I think I'll
be back to where I was before the upgrade.

Thanks for the help.

Bruce.

"Chris Cowles" <spam_magnet[at]remove-me-bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:u9vqhI3tGHA.4816[at]TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
- quote -

I guess I don't understand what you mean by obligations. Aren't all
expenses obligations?

- quote -

Ah, understood.

- quote -

Great! That fixed half of the problem. My monthly transfer was to a
Fidelity account and that account wasn't checked as being part of the
Budget. After adding the check to Fidelity, that transfer expense
disappeared and is no longer declared as an expense in the Budget. So far
so good.

The remaining other transfer is to a 401(k) retirement account. I have a
paycheck set up in Bills, and in Deductions Before Taxes, I have a transfer
of $545 to the ING Retirement Account. The problem is that when I go to the
same Budget accounts list as above, the ING Retirement Account is NOT shown
in the list. There's no way I can find to select it and make it part of the
Budget. That explains why it's being counted as an expense since the amount
is being transfered to an account outside the Budget.

If I can't make the retirement account part of the Budget, how to I get rid
of the remaining transfer being counted as an expense?

Thanks very much!
Bruce.

As noted in another thread, one reason my debt category groups actuals are
bizarre is because, apparently, it is including some things like amounts in
categories that are not in the budget and amounts that are income in expense
accounts (returns, typically).

I'm still trying to figure out why it autobudgets a negative expense total
for the debt budget group--especially when it only lists one "category"
under there and it's positive expense. I went off to create a new budget.
Very interesting stuff.

Then I went into Autobudget. It does strange things like assuming a category
with even one recurring bill doesn't need to account for spending from
history. My wife gets mail order coffee (Food:Groceries) once a quarter. So
autobudget assumes that's all of the Food:Groceries there is. So I go into
the View spending. You'd like to think I'd find all the Food:Groceries
transactions. Wrong. I find all of them that aren't put on Discover. As luck
would have it, most all of our regular "go to the grocery store"
Food:Groceries expenses are put on Discover. Why's it not here? Because it's
considered in the Debt category group, maybe? Because it got there because
it's in DRP? Take Discover out of DRP. Now Debt expense is right and View
spending sees all of the Food:Groceries. Autobudget still assumes the one
scheduled transaction is all it needs to know about the category, though.
The more I look into this thing, the more I understand why I haven't spent
much time messing with Advanced Budget/Budget Planner for many years now.
I'm pretty convinced I'd have to go do this kind of research/validation on
EVERY category to get to good numbers.

Budget Planner "issues" are, perhaps, why I had the estimated expenses in my
LP to begin with.

Perhaps they did the S&S Budget because the Advanced Budget logic was just
too hard to fix?

"Dick Watson" <littlegreengecko[at]mind-enufalready-spring.com> wrote in
message news:%23L4LGD4tGHA.4472[at]TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
- quote -

I had cross-checked the M04 and M07 results and they looked consistent. Now
your post made me dive in further. Mine was set to an estimated number, not
the budget estimate. Wow. I go from making it to age 95 to running out in
2015. Worse, I go looking at the budget and I can't yet see how it gets the
annualized number it says from the monthly numbers in the budget. It even
has a negative debt value. More investigation obviously required...

"Bruce Chastain" <bachastain[at]XNOSPAMXsbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:%23HUuP12tGHA.3552[at]TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
- quote -

I've seen the same problem. Previous versions of LP used to take the
expenses from what was left after obligations. The methods seemed pretty
straightforward and appropriate. 2007 seems to have dropped the
intelligence and forced the user to enter those expenses manually. I'm
disappointed.

The planner excludes taxes because they're estimated separately. That's the
line about your tax rate, relative to the state (US) you live in. That
average tax rate is considered in the future calculations. If they included
taxes, and calculated the tax rate, too, it would be double-counting your
taxes.

With respect to transfers, check to see if they're intra-budget or between
budget and non-budget accounts.
--
Chris Cowles
Gainesville, FL



"Bruce Chastain" <bachastain[at]XNOSPAMXsbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:%23HUuP12tGHA.3552[at]TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
- quote -

Ok, I just upgraded to 2007 and my Lifetime Planner Results (the chart)
changed dramatically from the previous chart in 2006. It went from a plan
that steadily grew, to one that initially climbs slower and then takes a
strong nosedive after retirement. In 2006 I was set for life; in 2007 I'm
in major trouble.

I've noticed several things but I think I've found the major problem.

The Planner is configured to get my Expenses total from the Budget (I stayed
with the Advanced Budget). Under 2006, that number was about $40K per year.
Under 2007 the Expenses is now $64K ($63,128). That made a major difference
in the chart. I tried manually adjusting it down to $40K and that seems to
restore the chart back to what I remember from 2006. So the question is,
where the heck is 2007 getting the calculated $64K Expenses from?

Looking at the budget, my expenses fall in to 3 categories:

$3254 Misc Expenses
$3263 Taxes (all paycheck)
$2090 Transfers to other accounts.

If I total the Misc Expenses and Transfers to other accounts, I get $5344
per month, or $63,128 per year. Bingo. Why the Planner excludes taxes as
an expense is a mystery to me, but that's another thread.

So the question is, why is it including the Transfers to other accounts as
an Expense? I don't remember those transfers showing as a budget expense in
2006.

That $2090 comes from 2 transfers. One to my 401(k) as a PayCheck before
taxes deduction transfer, specified in Bills. The other one is a monthly
transfer to my Fidelity account (also in Bills). Neither transfers can be
considered an expense. They're just transfers from one account (Chase
checking account) to the 2 other accounts I own. Neither transaction should
be categorized as an Expense.

So why is 2007 now showing those two transfers as an expense in the Budget?

Bruce.