FWIW, this is the exact tack I take.

"Mark Horn" <mark[at]hornclan.com> wrote in message
news:slrnd9u92n.qaa.mark[at]home.hornclan.com...
- quote -

That is an interesting idea. Personally, I don't think I'm going to
implement it. With M04, I can set up a regular bill that averages
over the last 12 payments. Which means that my budget for the
year will be approximately correct, but my budget for each month
might not be. In the winter (for example) I'll be way over budget,
while in the summer, I'll be way under budget. The converse is
true for electricity. But over the course of the year I should be
in the approximate ball park.

So the way that I handle that is to simply ignore things like gas
and electric on the monthly budget report, but pay closer attention
to them on the annual budget report.

On 2005-06-02, Jeff P <jeffpNO[at]SPAMruralramp.net> wrote:
- quote -

That's a good idea. I'm going to steal it.

-Jeff


"Jim Helfer" <jhelfer[at]deleteallthis.wtwarch.com> wrote in message
news:%23VzL5kgWEHA.3420[at]TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
- quote -

Thanks Mark, that's an interesting method.

Another possibiliy that I was considering was making each month's
utility a reoccuring yearly bill to the Gas company. Such as "January
Gas" and "July Gas".

Of course, I'm still futzing around with money to determine they way
it likes to do things.


Mark Fields wrote:

- quote -

How I do it is this:

I totaled the natural gas and electric portions of the bills for 12 months
(past year). Divided the number by 12 to get average cost. You could also
divide by 11.5 if you want to be a little conservative. e.g. $100 for
electric and $38 for gas.

Then I set up a recurring bill for $138 with a split $38 to Utilities: gas
and $100 to Utilities: Electric.

I have my bill deducted from my checking account and the utility company
send me an email notifying me 14 days before the bill comes out of my
account, so when I get the email, I check their website to get the actual
dollar amounts for the two utilities. From the "Manage Scheduled Bills and
Deposits" page I put the cursor on the next scheduled utility bill and press
on "edit" and "edit a single occurrence" to put in the proper numbers.

True it does not provide a perfect forecast for the cash flow but once you
have all your bills & deposits set up the cash flow should be accurate
enough to work well.

On the actual day that the bill hits the account I go ahead and enter it
into the register.

You could also edit individual bills based on your past experience for a
particular month (e.g. make January higher for heating) up to several months
in advance, but I think that would be too tedious to be worth it.

I've been doing it that way for about 3 years and it works OK for me.

Mark
- quote -

I am new at Money 2003 Deluxe, and have been having a good setting
all my monthly bills up and using the reoccurring transactions when
possible.

I notice that you are encouraged to put in estimated amounts for
bills that aren't the same but is there some feature to estimate amounts
for bills that vary wildly from month to month.
For instance, I live in Appalachia, so my heating bills are quite a
bit higher in the winter months than in the summer months. Electricity
varies a little bit, too.

How is anyone else handling this issue for their budget needs
(well, besides just paying the gas company the budget amount every
month, which would be the simplest thing to do).

Thanks for any suggestions
Jim
Pittsburgh PA