Thank you very much Steve for your complete and clarifying answer.

I take and agree happily the suggestion of not setting up fake accounts,
just real accounts and making sure each account has a goal, the way I've been
doing all these years, and not wasting time balancing added accounts, which
was my concern when I posted this topic.

And regarding budget in Money, I really want to do it, I tried it many times
but I always end up using a spreadsheet which I update monthly with the
Spending Report of Money. I feel the need to do it this way because of the
following reasons:

1. It's faster entering the data into the spreadsheet than entering it in
the budget section of money, specially when values are different for each
month, but on the other hand I waste time each month when I need to update
the spreadsheet with the Money data, so I may discard this reason.

2. I think it's more friendly to have all the numbers on a table where you
can make quick changes and see the result rather than a budget report of
Money that I think they are not bad, but sometimes appear confusing transfers
that ruin the information, I think this can be solved with a good setup but I
dont' remember if it works always.

3. I like to use forecasts, to have 3 columns on a budget report,
Actual-Budget-Forecast for each month and total for the year, so that I can
make changes during the year with new information I didn't know at the time
of doing the budget and see the results and compare with my original budget,
but Money has no Forecast field.

4. I can't find the Savings Goal feature, I remember in previous versions
saw it but In Money 2007 I don't see it, but I don't know if it's worth to
have it again.

5. I don't know why characters are squares and chinese-like in the Working
budget section in the % of Income column, there is no legible read of this %.

The cons I agree is the need to keep that spreadsheet always updated, not
taking full advantage of Money as one application, but seems natural to
complement with a spreadsheet, isn't it?

I wonder if it's possible to lower this 5 reasons.

--
Cristian


"SteveBell" wrote:

- quote -

pad39b wrote:

- quote -

Unless you're going to open an actual savings account at the bank, just
keep doing what you've been doing. If you _do_ open a real savings
account, set it up in Money, then maintain it the same way you do all
your other accounts, by entering transactions, transferring money in
and out, and balancing it each month.

Financial advisors often tell people to budget by using the "envelope"
system, where you take your paycheck each month, and separate it into
different _physical_ envelopes, one for each budget area (e.g. rent,
food, gasoline, savings). This is the poor man's method of budgeting,
and it's really just a teaching tool. They really need to be keeping
track of what they spend in a budget on paper, then keeping the money
in the bank.

The people who want to try "envelope" budgeting inside Money are
disappointed, because Money has no way of doing directly. It can be
done, but it's a lot of extra work that requires you to either make a
bunch of custom reports (and remember to run them every few days), or
you have to create a bunch of fake savings accounts that you have to
balance separately but still have them all add up to the amount in your
real account.

If you want to do budgeting, explore the budget capabilities built into
Money.

If you want to set up a savings account, I encourage you to do that at
the bank, then track it in Money.

--
Steve Bell
New Life Home Improvement
Arlington, TX

Hi,
I've been using Money for 10 years, now I use Money 2007 and so far I've
been using checking, cash, credit and investment accounts but never savings
account.

After reading the advisor fyi section, help, and reading the posts about
planned spending and savings accounts seems that I should setup a savings
account, and because I feel there is something missing to manage the cash I
need por each month and the cash I will put in savings. But I don't
understand how to manage a savings account because I'm used to put savings
directly from checking account to investment accounts which are real separate
accounts. Savings are in investment accounts because they are not in boxes,
so how do I use a savings account since all savings are in investment
accounts? this will let the savings account always to be in $0? maybe it's
simpler than I think? hope so...

Please any advise or examples about this will be appreciated to setup my
savings account and take advantage of it.

Thank you,
Cristian