Let me add two more thought I arrived at while drafting my other response:

You can search the historical archive of the newsgroup
microsoft.public.money at http://groups.google.com and find an endless
wealth of what's known about Microsoft Money.

You seem intent on not using all of Money and maybe this is a good way to
start. Be warned, however: for most of the Money stuff to produce good and
meaningful results it's really a pretty much all or nothing proposition. The
help it can provide is pretty much a function of what it knows. If you tell
it only 25% of the story, its ability to project and forecast and report is
ony 25% right.

Well, you should look at the sample file, for one. Read help as required and
watch the videos. Read the newsgroup for a week or two. I'll always plug the
FAQ at http://www.bollar.org/msmoney. There have been some books come and
go, but I think way too many computer books were ending up getting pulped,
so there really aren't nearly as many as there used to be.

Oh, and post questions like yours to the NG. You will find lots of people
here willing to help.

"HeadRusch" <headrusch1[at]comcast.net> wrote in message
news:XJbUb.175362$sv6.929214[at]attbi_s52...
[snipped]

- quote -

I would suggest trying the way most other users set things up in Microsoft
Money. It certainly is *nothing* like what you are used to do doing.
However, it might be just as effective.

1. Go to "Bills & Deposits"
2. Click "New: Deposit" and fill in the information regarding your weekly
paycheck.
3. Click "New: Bill" and fill in the information for each bill. (repeat as
necessary).

Now without even bothering to setup the budget features, this should already
give you an approximation of your cash flow forcast for the next 90 days.
This chart is displayed by default at the bottom of your account register
screen. You can play around with it or look at other reports and graphs if
you wish.

If you like you can then try running the budget planner. However, I get the
impression that you might not be interested in tracking your finances as
specifically as the budget feature would allow.

-Jeff




"HeadRusch" <headrusch1[at]comcast.net> wrote in message
news:XJbUb.175362$sv6.929214[at]attbi_s52...
- quote -

Hmmm.....you are, of course, correct....I've done this in a simple
pen-and-paper method...
And while it would be nice to continue this simple process in Money, clearly
money seems
designed for more in-depth transactions.

- quote -

I didn't tell Money any of this, as I dont want to turn Money into a
personal accountant
which requires constant interaction and updating....I guess you could say
I'm not interested
in that level of review at this time in my life.

- quote -

Again, oversimplification..

- quote -

Hmmmm.....

- quote -

I guess my question is this:
I have a set list of expenses each month....based on a previous years
average, I know what my telephone will be..roughly...and I know what my
mortgage payment will be absolutely.

So for each paycheck I get, I know I must devote XXX amount of my take-home
pay Towards that telephone bill, and that mortgage bill. If I get paid once
a week, I need to know how much out of each paycheck to devote towards
making my monthly "Goal" of having enough money in those categories to write
the check at the end of the month.

- quote -

True, true...

Money works
- quote -

Well, a followup question to this good advice: where does one learn the
correct way to make
money function.....the 2003 disc I purchased has some helpful audio clips to
take you through
some basic steps, but it doesn't really explain the interaction between all
the components.
I'm not a complete moron, but I'm no finance major either...hence, I need a
little handholding.
Do I buy a book, or do I look on the CD, or do I ask for HOW TO here on
usenet...

IF this is all you tell Money, then it can be this simple.

But your $50 paycheck is probably really $75 and $25 goes to things like
taxes. If you tell Money any of this, BP wants to track all of this.

Your mortgage payment is probably really a principal component that makes
you no richer or poorer and an interest component that is an expense but is
less than your $40 monthly mortgage expense. If you tell Money anything
about any of this, the BP wants to track it.

You income is not budgeted against expenses. It's budgeted against income.
Your monthly budget should reflect 12/52 x your $50 weekly pay as income.
How you will spend it is not a function of the income. It's separate from
the income. Money makes it thus.

I don't understand your point re. each deposit you make having to have $2
here and there. A deposit is some kind of income. It's got nothing to do
with all of your expenses.

I think you fit a specific category of new Money adopter: you are used to
solving this problem one way. Money wants to solve it another for reasons
that are maybe good in some cases and just arbitrary in others. You want a
hammer. Money is a screwdriver. You can certainly make Money behave like a
hammer, if that is your want. But it will work about as well as a
screwdriver used as a hammer. If you really don't want to look at your
problem any differently, you are probably better off using Excel or
something and analyzing the problem whatever way works for you. Money works
the way it works and tries to do so in a comprehensive way. It is not
designed to tell you want you want to hear. It's designed to tell you
something from exactly all of the data that it has. If you invest the time
to understand how it works and to adapt your way of looking at the problem
to its way you may discover that it is a powerful tool to do things like
separating the cash flow part of your problem from the budgeting part of
your problem. If you are not willing to make these investments and changes,
it will just be infuriating.

"HeadRusch" <headrusch1[at]comcast.net> wrote in message
news:2Y9Ub.172520$Rc4.1315270[at]attbi_s54...
- quote -

Here's my criteria...up until this point I've been doing this by hand in a
basic ledger book, and the only part that really sucks is the Deposit Entry.

I was hoping MONEY 2003 would be the solution to all my problems by
AUTOMATING this process, but alas....
I must be a financial retard because I just can't get this thing to work the
way I'd like it to.

My Scenario is quite simple...all I want money to do is track a simple
budget for me.

Example: I have four monthly bills:
Telephone
Cable
Mortgage
Electricity

ON average, my MONTHLY expenses for these categories are:
Telephone: 10 dollars
Cable 10 dollars
Mortgage 40 Dollars
Electricity 10 dollars

Now, I get a paycheck each week for $50.00

I want to enter in my deposit into my bank account of $50 dollars,
and for each $50 check I put into the bank I want
the budget categories to show:
2.50 into TELEPHONE
2.50 into CABLE
10 into MORTGAGE
2.50 into ELECTRICITY

and the rest get thrown into a "MISC" category.

But for the life of me I can't get Money to function this way. And god
forbid I have an expense that is a surprise,
and I have to move money around in the budget to make sure the cash is there
to pay my bills...ugh,
I swear I'm about at the point I go back to doing this by hand. Each
deposit I make I'd put $2.00 here, $2.00 there...
its such a pain in the ass.

Can money operate this simply?