Jason Reeves wrote:
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Jason,
I've been an 11 year user of Money and have upgraded each
year. What you have "discovered" about Money's budget is an example of
what we all "find" as we play around with different aspects of the
program. We are all trying to justify what Money says. Sometimes we
can, sometimes we can't. There ARE bugs in certain parts of the program
and certainly the budget area is one of them. Realize also that most of
us use Money differently. I maintain a complete list of all my spending
and reconcile daily to my credit cards and bank accounts. Some just use
the investment area. Some like cash flow or forecasting. I tend to
believe you need to have some kind of accounting background or interest
in order to make complete sense of what Money does. I think it is a
great program for the small cost I spend each year. It needs to be
maintained literly daily for it to be accurate. Just my
observations.Steve

I have now confirmed positively that I am viewing 2005 data for "future
months" when looking at the Budget Summary page, yet I am looking at 2006
data for future months when looking at the Annual Budget report. Gosh, what
a pain that was. That explains why I was getting different numbers because
I've had pay rate changes in the past year (still, the monthly calculations
that you provided were great, thanks for those). I simply have not come
across any documentation that details what I have discovered, am I just blind
or something? Is this common knowledge to you? I THINK and HOPE that all my
pressing questions have been answered. I would still like to hear any
input/thoughts that you guys may have on this. Thanks!

Jason

"Jason Reeves" wrote:

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OK, stop the presses, I found something interesting here. I now see that the
budgeted income for future months is different when viewed in the Annual
Report vs. the "Current Month" view in the Budget Summary. In the Annual
Report, the numbers are correct for each month (paycheck X 2)! I'm guessing
that since Money always uses a 12-month budget window and always starting in
January, it must be considering some months from 2005 when displaying info in
the Budget Summary. Do you agree? Thanks for putting up with all my
rambling....

Jason

"Jason Reeves" wrote:

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Perhaps I know part of the issue here. If I read correctly, then Money's
budget will analyze your spending over the past 12 months. Looking at my
budget's electric bill entry (which I have budgeted $200/month for), I see
that past months due not use that budgeted amount (but rather $150, and a
couple of months have $198), but future months do use $200/month. I tried
setting up a budget a while back, but had these same problems, so I started
the budget over from scratch this month. I think it is still taking into
account what I used to have in my Bills & Deposits area or something to come
up with these past-month values. Is there a way to start your budget from
scratch regarding how these calculations are made, perhaps a new start date
of this month (or next month now that we're nearly in October)?

Jason


"Jason Reeves" wrote:

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BennyT,

Thanks for the info, and as I mentioned to the other poster, sorry for the
long delay getting back to this. Looking my annual budget report, I now have
more questions. My budgeted income listed for each month is different.
There are a few months that are the same (July, August, and October are all
equal down to the penny; in addition, November and December are the same;
every other month has a different amount). Could the fact that I started my
budget at this time of the year make a difference? Would it be different if
I started in January? I don't even know if that is possible. To give you a
rough idea, out of biweekly income amounts of around $5000, I'm getting
variances as little as $26 and as much as $217, and this is excluding the
months with an extra payment! I must be missing something obvious because
this is just not acceptable. Surely, thousands of other users would be
screaming from their rooftops with this much variance in their monthly
incomes. I find it odd that the first 6 months all vary, but then the last
six months (other than September with the extra paycheck) have at least one
other month with an identical income amount. Any thoughts?

"BennyT." wrote:

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Sorry for the long delay getting back to your post, its been one of those
weeks. I stand corrected, Money does show that two of the months have higher
incomes that are roughly equivalent to an extra pay check (March and
September). However, this report shows some interesting and confusing points
for me that I'd like to bring up. I'm going to respond to the other post in
order to include the other contributor to this discussion, please read my
reply there. Thanks for your help!

Jason

"Chris Cowles" wrote:

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Jason; I'm new to this forum, and to the advanced budget also. This problem
that you described nearly drove me crazy also. Here is what I've figured out
on my own, and it seems to be accurate. If your remember these simple
guidelines.
#1. A year has 365.25 days, this accounts for leap year every 4th year.
#2. A year has 52.1785xxxxx weeks according to the above calculation.
#3. Take half of #2 for "every other week" paychecks.
Example.
I want to budget $20.00 weekly for gasoline. Normal calculations would say
to multiply $20.00 X 52 then divide by 12 to get the monthly budget.
This would be 86.67 per month "per normal calculations".
Now using the rules above.
(((365.25/7) X $20.00)/12) = $86.96 per month.
I know this is only $0.29 cents difference, but this is also a small budget
amount.
The difference can get really big when several hundred dollars are budgeted
like this.
Hope this helps.



"Jason Reeves" wrote:

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If you look at the annual budget report, does it show which months have
higher income?
--
Chris Cowles
Gainesville, FL



"Jason Reeves" <Jason Reeves[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:AA20ABBE-D362-436A-8BB0-9877073367E0[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

I setup an Advanced Budget for the first time, but I'm not sure how Money
2005 (Deluxe) is calculating my monthly "Budgeted" values. For example,
sometimes it looks like a yearly total divided by 12 (months). Other times,
it looks like a weekly budget item is divided by 7 (days) and then multiplied
by the number of days in the month. Is there some documentation on how the
values are calculated?

Also, something that drives me crazy is the budgeting of my income. I get
paid every other Friday, so some months have 3 pay-days in them. Rather than
showing those months with an extra payment, Money indicates that my monthly
income is higher than it really is, presumably accounting for the 2-3 extra
pay days per year. Is there a way to have a real month-to-month income
reported?