thanks for the info Chris I'll look for that. Yes certainly the only folks
complaining about us sending more than the monthly minimum are the credit
vendors. Cuts into the interest fees they garner from us.

thanks again;
chris


"Chris Cowles" <spam_magnet[at]remove-me-bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:OyF8R0QBHHA.1196[at]TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
- quote -

"Repent34" <Repent34[at]hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:ehn1IqQBHHA.4212[at]TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
- quote -

On the settings page of the credit card account, there's a button that says
'Change Credit Details'. There, click the Minimum Payment amount. Until
you're on it, it doesn't look like you can edit it. When you click it, some
additional fields appear.

The Fed recently imposed rules related to credit card minimum payments, to
assure that all credit card debt will be repaid within a certain minimum
period of time. That threw some extra "if" conditions into determining the
minimum payment. Money doesn't handle them to the detail that the bank
does. You may have to tweak the minimum rate slightly higher than the base
rate specified by the bank, to keep the minimum payment high enough.

That may cause it to exceed what the bank requires, under some conditions.
The difference is nominal. I ignore it and let it pay more than required.
It's only a few bucks and doesn't make a big difference over the life of
the plan.
--
Chris Cowles
Gainesville, FL

ok, based on that, here is what I did and saw. Please give your thoughts and
critique on this:

I use cash flow not based on trends but on actual bills, deposits, etc and
my cash flow is fairly accurate. I've been going by it for several years
now,

So, I added the bills into the planner, then told it I wanted to be out of
debt by, say, 12-2008. I then checked each box to allow the planner to
schedule the bill payment for me. I elected to have it keep both bills,
that is, the one it was creating and the one already previously entered in
the bills area. I then went to the bills area and deleted the one I had
been using and kept the one plugged in by the planner.

So far so good.

I then went to the cash flow area and saw that the floor was at an
acceptable level, and possibly could comfortably go lower. I went back to
the planner, and changed it from 12-2006 to 8-2006. As I stepped through
the planner again, I noted that it had recalculated the monthly payments of
the higher interest accounts, adding more of a monthly payment than before.
Ok, good. Seems like that is the desired result, pay off the higher
accounts first by adding more to the monthly payment to reflect my new out
of debt date. Cool. Back to cash flow. Oops, floor dipped into the red.
Back to debt planner, new out of debt date changed again. Step back through
planner. Amounts changed again on higher interest accounts. Good, the
program is accepting the changes and making adjustments accordingly.

So, a question though is this:

I noticed that the payment the planner was using (proposing) was in some
cases not quite what the vendor wanted as a monthly minimum. Basically just
a few dollars off so there is some discrepency in how interest charges are
calculated between Money 2007 and the credit vendor.

How do I adjust that proposed monthly payment to equal or round up to what
the vendor really wants as a monthly payment. For instance, Money saves the
lower interest accounts till last to pay off, but is proposing a lower
monthly payment that what is required. When I try to edit the series in the
planner at the schedule payments screen in the planner the dollar amount and
account are greyed out and it states the payment is controlled my the debt
reduction planner????

I apologize for being so verbose but there are no posts related to the
planner so I want others to be able to follow my question.

thanks again;
chris


"Chris Cowles" <spam_magnet[at]remove-me-bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:%2320L09PBHHA.4892[at]TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
- quote -

I concur with Bob's advice. However, it assumes your cash flow forecast is
configured to forecast properly. That includes having a valid budget.

If using past trends, those past trends must accurately reflect future
behavior. My experience using that option is that it doesn't work very
well.
--
Chris Cowles
Gainesville, FL

"Bob Peel, MVP" <bob_peel[at]kiandra.freeserve.co.uk.INVALID> wrote in message
news:%23Ngkd$OBHHA.3228[at]TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
- quote -

No that's the way to do it. When you select the pay each month option it
tells you the minimum, but after that you have to go right through and then
see what happens to cash flow.

The other thing to do is pick a date to be out of debt, see how much that
costs you each month and have a look at the cash flow. You can then tweak
that until your cash flow is happy!

--
Regards
Bob Peel,
Microsoft MVP - Money

For UK tips & fixes see
http://support.microsoft.com/default...d=fh;EN-GB;mny.


I do not respond to any emails that I have not specifically asked for.

"Repent34" <Repent34[at]hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:%23lIZEkOBHHA.144[at]TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
- quote -

Here is the question:
Hopefully I can make this make sense.....


When you use the debt planner to include debt such as credit cards, loans,
etc, then you get to the page for "Define your payment plan" in the section
at the top where you can either enter in the date you want to be out of debt
or the amount you want to pay each month, how can you know how much you can
afford to pay? If there were a snapshot of say the cash flow chart, and as
you moved the slider representing either the date to be out of debt or the
monthly payment amount, you could dial it in to wherever you wanted your
cash flow to be.

As it is, I don't really see anything other than taking a "SWAG" at a
monthly figure or date, then going through the setting up the recurring
monthly pymts so as to follow the debt plan, then go to the cash flow to see
if I can live with where the floor of the cash flow may end up at.

Am I missing something real obvious here??

thanks all;
chris