I think I'm onto something (or, on something). I started
playing with the budget reports, looking at each month in
the future, and I saw the budget numbers get more and
more accurate.

Is it possible that you recently made an expense (or
income) into a recurring transaction? If that's the case,
then it appears to me that it starts to figure in that in
the budget from the time you made it recurring (or first
recurring incident). Therefore, it's got to figure itself
out over time. Once I got far enough out in the future,
it looked much, much better.

If this is it, it kinda makes sense, actually.

I've got the exact same problem, and like you, can't
believe that it's that blatantly bad. At least you assure
me that I'm not totally insane or ignorant!

My problems are related to recurring transactions, but as
I play with the numbers, it's not even that simple.
Looking at Current Month vs. Next Month *should* show the
same budgeted amount (in my budget), but it does not. And
it pulls in whatever it darn well pleases.

If anyone knows how to make the budget behave with
recurring transactions, please post!

- quote -

So true.

But many people have found ways to deal with it. I'm not fully sure I
understand your problem, but I suspect that scheduled transactions are
involved. Money makes the (to me, anyway) infuriating assumption that
scheduled items are in budget. This is not autobudget. It's just hardcoded
business logic.

"MostlyH2O" <jc[at]takethisoutbaylife2000.com> wrote in message
news:uczic.514234$Po1.492615[at]twister.tampabay.rr.com...
- quote -

Hi Folks,

Can anyone explain to me how I can create a budget based on my own numbers -
without the program (2003) changing them based on my previous spending?

Isn't the whole point of a budget to STAY within the budgeted limits? I
just can't figure out why the budgeting feature arbitrarily changes my
budgeted values. Even when I start over from scratch, with a new budget, it
just repopulates it the way it wants to - ignoring the numbers I put in to
the budget planner. I have ignored the autobudget altogether. I have clicked
autobudget and unchecked all the values. I have begged and pleaded with
autobudget to go away.

Microsoft doesn't mention this problem on their support site or in help. I
simply CAN'T believe this is a bug. I create database front ends for a
living, and I know somebody went to a lot of trouble to make this feature
work in this bizzare and counterproductive way. After countless hours with
this issue, I still can't figure out why.

I really like the GUI in Money 2003 - I even got the dummies book for the
program. I'd hate to have to start over with Quicken, but I'm at the end of
my rope with this program.

Thank you for any insight into this issue.

Jack Coletti