Re: [No Thirst Software] What is the purpose of a Transfer

[Kevin Hoctor]

On Mar 25, 2009, at 5:39 PM, Tony wrote:

> I set things up, but I think I did things wrong. I still have a
> Quicken mentality. I think I over used the Transfer feature, such as,
> paying a credit card payment. I just made a new transaction from my
> Checking account and paid the credit account directly with a
> Transfer. Then I realized those transactions never made it into my
> Salary bucket or any other bucket, such as a Debt Repayment bucket.
> Now, I'm confused. Should I scrap the Debt Repayment bucket? Just
> send things from the Salary bucket back into the appropriate Credit
> Card Accounts? Un-quickening is proving to be a challenge.

Hi Tony,

If I'm paying down a balance on my credit card, I assign the outgoing
transaction in the transfer to my Debt Repayment bucket. I also have a
planned amount set to that bucket so I allocate part of my income to
paying down debt.

If I were to use credit cards for mileage and am buying clothing or
other items and then paying off that balance before I incur any
interest charges, I don't assign either side of the transfer to a
bucket because the original transaction is all that matter and that
credit card transaction was assigned to my Clothing bucket (or
whatever I spent the money on).

You only want to assign the spending of your cash once. Past debt is
filled with new interest charges so those are all unaccounted for and
that's why I suggest using a Debt Repayment bucket.

Peace,

Kevin Hoctor
ke...@nothirst.com
No Thirst Software LLC
http://nothirst.com
http://kevinhoctor.blogspot.com

[cardigrl]

When you use the debt repayment bucket, do you use that for the entire amount of the payment, or just the interest?  In other words, I'm paying down a credit card.  I need to plan for the entire monthly payment, so that's what I assign to the debt repayment bucket.  But what do you do with the interest charges?   Do you track those somewhere other than as an increase in the credit card account not assigned to a bucket?  If I assign those to the debt repayment bucket, it seems I would be counting that twice because it's included in the monthly payment.

Does that question make any sense?

Thanks,

Lynne
 

]

[Kevin Hoctor]

On Mar 31, 2009, at 9:47 PM, cardigrl wrote:

When you use the debt repayment bucket, do you use that for the entire amount of the payment, or just the interest?  In other words, I'm paying down a credit card.  I need to plan for the entire monthly payment, so that's what I assign to the debt repayment bucket.  But what do you do with the interest charges?   Do you track those somewhere other than as an increase in the credit card account not assigned to a bucket?  If I assign those to the debt repayment bucket, it seems I would be counting that twice because it's included in the monthly payment.

Does that question make any sense?

Hi Lynne,

You don't need to track the interest separate from the payment since a credit card is charging you interest on interest. Trying to break those values out isn't helping your cash flow management. Pay down your credit card balance and work to eliminate them as a means of paying any expenses as quickly as you can and that will help reduce the interest you are paying.

As for the bucket assignment, the goal is to set aside money to pay off your debt so you'd give the Debt Repayment bucket a planned amount, allocate income to it, and then pay your credit card with that payment assigning the whole withdrawal transaction to that bucket. If this isn't clear, please let me know.

[cardigrl]

Thank you!  That is clear.

Unfortunately, I am still have a couple of questions.  For example:

My checking account balance is currently $ 163.25.  When I click on that account, Moneywell tells me the 3/30/09 balance is $163.25; the reconciled balance is ($16,951.15); and the buckets balance is $2,424.98, a number that I can't for the life of me figure out how it calculates.  As near as I can tell, what it reports as the reconciled balance is the total withdrawals from the last statement I reconciled.  It has nothing to do with the actual reconciled balance from that bank statement or anything else.

The groceries bucket is currently showing a negative 7.07, yet I *know* that I spent more than that over budget (unfortunately).  When I clicked on the bucket to try and see what transactions it has, it showed me just the transactions from whichever account is selected (for example, checking or Amex, which I use when buying groceries out of town).  Is there a way to look at all the transactions for a bucket, regardless of which account the money came from?

Lynne

[Patricia Cross]

On Apr 1, 2009, at 9:33 AM, cardigrl wrote:

> Is there a way to look at all the transactions for a bucket,
> regardless of which account the money came from?

Yes. Select all the accounts you want to look at, either individually
by holding down the shift key as you select it or by selecting one and
hitting open apple-A

-Trish

[Kevin Hoctor]

You can also select all accounts by clicking the "Accounts" title.
This works for the titles on the Buckets and Transactions lists as well.

[Kevin Hoctor]

On Apr 1, 2009, at 8:33 AM, cardigrl wrote:

My checking account balance is currently $ 163.25.  When I click on that account, Moneywell tells me the 3/30/09 balance is $163.25; the reconciled balance is ($16,951.15); and the buckets balance is $2,424.98, a number that I can't for the life of me figure out how it calculates.  As near as I can tell, what it reports as the reconciled balance is the total withdrawals from the last statement I reconciled.  It has nothing to do with the actual reconciled balance from that bank statement or anything else.

Lynne,

The reconciled balance is simply the total of all the transactions that have been marked as "Reconciled." If you have reconciled them all up to 3/30/09, it should match the $163.25 balance. You can contact me directly at ke...@nothirst.com to discuss this further if you'd like so your personal numbers aren't posted to a forum.

[goo...@lancegeiger.com]

> You can also select all accounts by clicking the "Accounts" title.  
> This works for the titles on the Buckets and Transactions lists as well.
>

I went and watched the video tutorials again now that I've used
MoneyWell for a while and saw this tip used in the video which I had
missed the first time. You can also select all transactions using the
same method (click on "Transactions" title).

If you routinely like to check that all your account balances equal
your bucket balance this tip saves you some time. It's also generally
a good idea to keep all the accounts selected when looking at buckets
as I've run into the same issue as Lynne several times before I
realized the problem.

We should consolidate all these useful tips into a more permanent
place somewhere. Maybe someone can create an "unofficial MoneyWell
wiki" :)

-Lance

[Kevin Hoctor]

Lance,

More of this information will be appearing on our website very soon.
No need to spend time on a wiki. ;)

Peace,

Kevin Hoctor

No Thirst Software LLC
http://nothirst.com

Sent from my iPhone