Inputing Credit Card Payments into budget

[mandm]

I hvae used Money for years but am just starting to use
the budget. Anyway, maybe I am overlooking a simple step
but have tried several steps and am unable to add credit
card payments. I had my credit card payments setup in
Bills and Deposits as transfers from checking to the
respective credit card account. I then changed these
transactions to credit card payment categories and I was
still unable to make them appear in the budget. I tried
adding them in the budget setup and their is no credit
card payment like there is for debt. Thanks in advance
for any help. I am about to use Excel to create a manaual
budget but would like to use Money.

[Dick Watson]

First, some theory:

You are on the right track so far, but need to understand that the credit
card payment, per se, doesn't affect your budget--**assuming both accounts
are in the budget, which your input doesn't confirm but suggests**--since it
just moves (transfers) money from one place in the budget (a cash account)
to another (a liability account.) What affects the budget is transfers in or
out of budgeted accounts and income or expenses. Interest charged to the
account is an expense. Groceries charged to the account are expenses. Wages
deposited in your checking account is income. Thus, Interest, Groceries, and
Wages are what you want to budget, not the credit card payment itself.

Budgeting is useful for managing overall income and expenses--not which
particular account the money came/went to/from.

BTW, Cash Flow Forecasting is useful for predicting if that $10,000 transfer
from checking to the credit card will cause problems with your checking
account balance.

Go re-look at the budget with this in mind and see if it doesn't make more
sense.

"mandm" <maca...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:3d1001c1fd0c$fc421a70$9ee62ecf@tkmsftngxa05...

[mandm]

Thanks for the response. I think I understand, you can
not create a pure cash budget in Money. But why then do
my loan repayments that are in Bills and Deposits transfer
to the budget. I guess I could take my cc accounts and
make them debt accounts. This would probably get around
the problem I am faced.

>.
>

[Dick Watson]

You don't say what version you are using, but in M02 it takes the loan
payments and throws them into the Special category, Debt subcategory.
Perhaps this is because the loans are long-term and fixed payment in nature
and typically do not have lots of corresponding expenses recorded? In my
case, it's also putting the credit card transfers there, but these are in
DRP as well, so that may explain why.

What version are you using?

Budgeting has many issues; it has gotten better over the years, but there
are still issues.

Anybody else who dabbles more with budgeting want to dive in and help here?

"mandm" <maca...@mindspring.com> wrote in message

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