To that point, google offers an on-line spreadsheet that might also be a
decent introduction to the concept and would skip the download/installation.

"Ken" <PleaseReply[at]NewsGroup.Thanks> wrote in message
news:eBFSFigpIHA.4888[at]TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
- quote -

Thanks for your reply. I might give that a shot. Thanks for the suggestion.


"Ken" wrote:

- quote -

Try OpenOffice, it's Free..... and it's spreadsheet is similar to Excel.
http://www.openoffice.org/

Ken

"Lonnie" <Lonnie[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:A05F47D1-0B2E-45B5-97C4-8C131E792794[at]microsoft.com...

| Thank you for your reply.
|
|
| I might just give that Excel a try and see how it works out for me, not
sure
| yet, as it's pretty expensive.
|
| "Dick Watson" wrote:
|
| > I doubt if any of the applications in the "personal financial
management"
| > space do this, but have not used them all. GnuCash, AceMoney, Quicken,
| > MoneyDance and so on would all have the same fundamental issue here in
what
| > formula to use.
| | > Excel is a program that allows the user to create "spreadsheets" of
defined
| > formulas and values and functions. You could have a value for "balance"
and
| > a value for "interestrate" and a value for "fees" and compute a value
called
| > minimumpayment which was defined as equal to (1.5% * balance) + fees +
| > (balance * (interestrate/12)). Change any value and formula would
| > automagically recalculate the resulting minimumpayment.
| | > Excel is applicable to all manner of numerical and data problems,
financial
| > and otherwise. But it's pretty much strictly DIY. It's to spreadsheets
as a
| > Word Processor is to Shakespeare. You can use it to write the stuff or
to
| > open other people's documents with the stuff, but when you start it, it
just
| > sits there doing nothing.
| | > "Lonnie" <Lonnie[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
| > news:00DB225F-076A-4CDD-AF45-FF5AB303E2E7[at]microsoft.com...
| > > Again, thank you for your perspective/reply.
| > | > > I guess I'll just have to keep my eye out for another program. I
dought
| > > very much though if I'll find one with this feature, or one similar.
Do
| > > you
| > > know of any? Possibly another MS program. You mentioned Excel in
your
| > > post.
| > > Is this financial software as well? I've heard the name before, but
have
| > > never had the oportunity to try it out.
| | |

Thank you for your reply.


I might just give that Excel a try and see how it works out for me, not sure
yet, as it's pretty expensive.

"Dick Watson" wrote:

- quote -

I doubt if any of the applications in the "personal financial management"
space do this, but have not used them all. GnuCash, AceMoney, Quicken,
MoneyDance and so on would all have the same fundamental issue here in what
formula to use.

Excel is a program that allows the user to create "spreadsheets" of defined
formulas and values and functions. You could have a value for "balance" and
a value for "interestrate" and a value for "fees" and compute a value called
minimumpayment which was defined as equal to (1.5% * balance) + fees +
(balance * (interestrate/12)). Change any value and formula would
automagically recalculate the resulting minimumpayment.

Excel is applicable to all manner of numerical and data problems, financial
and otherwise. But it's pretty much strictly DIY. It's to spreadsheets as a
Word Processor is to Shakespeare. You can use it to write the stuff or to
open other people's documents with the stuff, but when you start it, it just
sits there doing nothing.

"Lonnie" <Lonnie[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:00DB225F-076A-4CDD-AF45-FF5AB303E2E7[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

Again, thank you for your perspective/reply.


I guess I'll just have to keep my eye out for another program. I dought
very much though if I'll find one with this feature, or one similar. Do you
know of any? Possibly another MS program. You mentioned Excel in your post.
Is this financial software as well? I've heard the name before, but have
never had the oportunity to try it out.

"Dick Watson" wrote:

- quote -

But it's a regulatory minimum of the moment. Nothing prevents an FI from
computing any number of minimum payments that are at least as high as the
regulatory amount and number of different ways.

And even if you find a place to ram in this formula, where do you do it?
There are only two places in Money bills where Money calculates ANYTHING.
Those are, to my knowledge, DRP and the interest/principal components of a
Loan Payment. DRP is calculated on the basis of free cash flow and least cost
of money. Loan Payments are calculated on a simple interest formula. The
latter is a great example: how many threads are there a month about Money's
canned calculation getting this "wrong"?

I'm not saying they couldn't program it. I'm saying they won't and if they
did, the oly way that would make sense from just about any PoV is to expose a
way for the USER to define the formula, not the application since there is no
one formula they could use and get it consistently right. They won't do the
programmability thing since user support scares them and their estimation of
the average Money user (or target Money user or median Money user or
whatever--the mythical user they CARE THE MOST ABOUT) is as a user who only
wants to avoid logging in to many bank websites to see their ads and his
financial information and just wants to look in Money to see Microsoft's ads
and all of his financial information--exactly as percieved by the banks--in
one place. I don't think they view planning payment amounts strategically as
something that the mythical user cares about, wants to do, or even would
understand how to do. Clearly they don't think this user would know how to
define a payment in terms of some Excel-like formula.

"Lonnie" wrote:

- quote -

Well, :-) although I'd be inclined to do that NOW in my life, I wasn't
always inclined to do things that way earlier in my life. I don't know of
too many people who can pay for a house all up front, do you? :-)

Anymore these days, you just can't get by without some form of debt. This
isn't a biggy or anything, I'll have it paid off before too much longer, it's
just I would've liked to continue to use the debt reduction planner to help
me plan better. The DRP is pretty much the only reason why I purchased money
in the first place. I like it very much and the competition doesn't have
anything near it in MHO. Now, in my opinion, Money has NOTHING to
distinguish it from its competition. I might as well go out an buy Quicken
:-( YUK


Thanks for the reply.


"Taylor" wrote:

- quote -

"Lonnie" <Lonnie[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:8F47B359-4DA9-44BB-A8A2-C19744C88446[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

Why not? Just don't spend more than you can pay!

- quote -

Oh, here is a link I found stating the specifics of what I just mentioned
about the new minimum payment calculations.



http://www.money-zine.com/Financial-...imum-Payments/





"Lonnie" wrote:

- quote -

Hmmm, interesting. It looks as though the changes have been mandated by the
government, federal banking regulators to be specific, and cannot be changed.
As far as I can tell, it cannot differ (very much) from what I've already
described...ie...a percentage, 1% to be exact, of the new overall balance, +
new finace charges, + any fees assiciated with the account (like over limit
fees, late payment fees...etc.). Add all that up and you have your minimum
payment. When I received a notice from my CC company about the changes to
the calculation of minimum payments, it had on it that the changes were
mandated by the federal banking regulators, and is NOT negotiable and cannot
be declined, even if you close your account (which I did), you still have to
pay by the new minimum payment as calculated by the formula above.

Surely it should be easy enough to incorporate that into the program since
ALL banks have to meet those basics of calculating the minimum payments.

:-) It has been a LONG TIME since I did any programming, but I'm sure I can
do it. All I need is the permission to do it. And I wouldn't even ask for
compensation for my programming skills. :-)

"Lonnie" wrote:

- quote -

Thank you for your reply.

I suppose that could be a problem. But why not just leave that in the hands
of the individuals who purchase the program? First off, I don't really think
it would be truly infinite, but I get what you mean. If it's left up to the
individual to put in the parameters, strickly for the planners calculations
for minimum payment. From what I've seen, it looks as though there are only
a few different ways that the CC companies are using right now, and they are
all pretty much based on a percentage of the overall amount owed + all the
NEW interest. Money is already capable of handling adding up the overall
amount owed, and it is already capable of working in the interest in there,
otherwise it couldn't give you the "Out of debt" by date. Anyway, it's just
a thought.

Again, thanks for your prespective/reply.


"Dick Watson" wrote:

- quote -

Any individual scheme probably shouldn't be hard. From the developer's PoV,
though, the problem very quickly becomes that there are an almost infinite
number of credit card companies figuring out an almost infinite number of
ways to do these kinds of things. That's a really hard case to design for.

I've long advocated some kind of Excel-like (or VB/object like) grammar to
define payment amounts in the Bills scheduler. Anything like this, however,
is more advanced than the target user for the product and scares Microsoft to
death about potential support costs. So instead of "Programmatic Bills" we
get "Essential Bills" and get told--with zero evidence--that the dumbed-down
model is what "most users prefer."

And so it goes.

"Lonnie" wrote:

- quote -

Thanks for the reply.

Not everyone is able to pay off the balance at the end of the month, at
least I'm not. :-) I would think that since Moeny is able to keep track of
balances .. etc, that it shouldn't be too hard to incorporate that into the
program. Otherwise, this new way that CC companies are using to figure
minimum payments kind of does away with the need for a Debt Reduction
Planner. The DRP is pretty much the ONLY reason I like to run Money in the
first place. I hope MS incorporates it into their program soon.

"Taylor" wrote:

- quote -

"Lonnie" <Lonnie[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:36BF66BC-7AEB-435C-9BC4-2FC8594A788F[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

I am not aware of any.

Advice: pay off your credit card balance in full every month.

I'm just wondering if Money can be used somehow to calculate these new darn
ways that Credit Card companies are using to figure out Minimum Payments. It
used to be that all you did was pay a certain percentage of the overall
balance, now it's that percentage + any new finance charges. Is there ANY
version of Money that allows for this? I've got Money 2006, but all I've
ever seen in the Planner in regards to this minimum payment is putting in a
percentage and/or a minimum payment in cash.

Any and all help is appreciated.

Thank you for your time.