Optimal savings setup
Dave Hirsch
accounts, but I'm not sure this has been covered.
I have three savings accounts:
1) Summer savings: Part of my paycheck gets automatically diverted to
this to account for the fact I get paid 9 months a year. I have
control over this money and would like to track it, but the money
doesn't come to me as part of my regular paycheck, which gets
deposited into my checking account.
2) Infrequent Expenses: Many of my buckets are meant to be savings-
related, to build up money until needed. For example, my gifts bucket
saves up until needed, primarily around December. This account is
intended to be the real account in which that money resides.
3) Rainy Day Fund: A general accumulation account into which I
transfer $200 per month from my checking account.
I understand that I could just keep all the money in one account and
keep track of it using buckets, but that doesn't appeal to me,
especially since I'm still getting up to speed with Moneywell, and I
might make mistakes with it, causing me to mis-identify how much money
I have in a given bucket. Having separate accounts is extra insurance
against spending my savings.
The Rainy Day Fund can be dealt with using one of the methods
described here:
http://alan.petitepomme.net/blog/2008/04/tracking-savings-in-moneywell.html
How to deal with the other two, though?
Summer savings: I'd like to consider this income deferred, and not
even assign it a bucket, until I withdraw it during the summer. At
that time I'd move it to checking and call it income. Perhaps that is
unwise, though? And if I do that, every contribution to Summer
Savings makes my Unassigned bucket be nonzero.
Infrequent Expenses: No idea. Help, please.
Thanks in advance,
Dave
Brent Weber
discovered this trick.
Right click on the transaction and select "Make Bucket Optional".
I use Moneywell's transaction download feature to track my savings
account balance. But, I mark every transaction in the account as
"Make Budget Optional". I can track my savings account balance, but
this money is not part of my budget. When I need to spend it later in
the year, I will mark the side of the transfer that hits my savings
account as earnings and continue to spend as normal.
The trick is splitting tracking balances (accounts) form budgeting
(buckets). So far this is working good for me.
Brent
When I need to spend it later in the year, I will mark the side of the
spend as normal.
Kevin Hoctor
The main purpose of an envelope budgeting system is to make sure you
divide up your income and set it aside for various purposes and then
only spend what is in envelopes. Given this concept, your savings
accounts are your destination for money but not necessarily a bucket.
If you have money automatically diverted from your paycheck to
savings, you don't need to track this with buckets. It's never in your
cash flow so just track the bank register of your savings account and
be thrilled that you are so good about setting aside money.
For certain infrequent expenses, I know they are coming but won't
happen until later in the year (birthday and Christmas presents as an
example) but I have a buckets for Gifts Given and others to hold
allocated money so I can set it aside.
For unexpected expenses, I use my Savings bucket and set aside a
consistent amount each month and any extra I can stock away in it and
then transfer that money to my savings account making sure to assign
the outgoing expense side of that transfer to the Savings bucket so it
drains that bucket.
I don't try to track unexpected expenses. Instead I try to continually
build a war chest of money so I'm ready when they happen. There's no
way to budget for everything but it sounds like you have a good handle
on it. Just don't try to force savings into buckets except for the
setting aside money part.
Peace,
Kevin Hoctor
ke...@nothirst.com
No Thirst Software LLC
http://nothirst.com
http://kevinhoctor.blogspot.com
bilbo
I am evaluating MoneyWell 1.4.3. I am attempting to model my monthly
savings goal as you described below, but run into a problem. I don't
know if I've uncovered a bug in MoneyWell, or if I'm doing something
wrong or just misunderstanding how it's supposed to work. Here's what
I can do to reproduce the problem:
- I create a Savings bucket, which has $2000 in it. That is, it shows
$2000.00 in green next to it in the Buckets list.
- I transfer $2000 from my checking to my savings account, by dragging
the checking account to the savings account, and entering today's
date, and 2000 in the amount field.
- I set the bucket for the outgoing expense side of the transfer, the
one with the minus sign next to it, to Savings.
The problem is my Savings bucket still shows that it has $2000 in it!
It should be empty now by my understanding. If I click on the
Savings bucket, it even shows my transfer transaction, with -2000 as
the amount, yet the bucket still has $2000 in it. Why isn't the
amount of the transfer transaction being subtracted from the bucket
amount? When I enter normal (not transfer) transactions, everything
works as expected and the bucket amounts go up or down by the amount
of the transaction.
Thank you,
Adam
On Mar 7, 6:29 pm, Kevin Hoctor <ke...@nothirst.com> wrote:
> Hi Dave,
>
> The main purpose of an envelope budgeting system is to make sure you
> divide up your income and set it aside for various purposes and then
> only spend what is in envelopes. Given this concept, yoursavings
> accounts are your destination for money but not necessarily a bucket.
>
> If you have money automatically diverted from your paycheck to savings, you don't need to track this with buckets. It's never in your
>
> For certain infrequent expenses, I know they are coming but won't
> happen until later in the year (birthday and Christmas presents as an
> example) but I have a buckets for Gifts Given and others to hold
> allocated money so I can set it aside.
>
> the outgoing expense side of that transfer to theSavingsbucket so it
>
> I don't try to track unexpected expenses. Instead I try to continually
> build a war chest of money so I'm ready when they happen. There's no
> way to budget for everything but it sounds like you have a good handle
> No Thirst Software LLChttp://nothirst.comhttp://kevinhoctor.blogspot.com
> On Mar 6, 2009, at 1:43 PM, Dave Hirsch wrote:
>
>
>
> > First: I've read a great deal on this list about how to set upsavings
> > accounts, but I'm not sure this has been covered.
>
> > I have threesavingsaccounts:
> > control over this money and would like to track it, but the money
> > doesn't come to me as part of my regular paycheck, which gets
> > deposited into my checking account.
> > 2) Infrequent Expenses: Many of my buckets are meant to besavings-
> > related, to build up money until needed. For example, my gifts bucket
> > saves up until needed, primarily around December. This account is
> > intended to be the real account in which that money resides.
> > 3) Rainy Day Fund: A general accumulation account into which I
> > transfer $200 per month from my checking account.
>
> > I understand that I could just keep all the money in one account and
> > keep track of it using buckets, but that doesn't appeal to me,
> > especially since I'm still getting up to speed with Moneywell, and I
> > might make mistakes with it, causing me to mis-identify how much money
> > I have in a given bucket. Having separate accounts is extra insurance
> > against spending mysavings.
>
> > The Rainy Day Fund can be dealt with using one of the methods
> > described here:
> > How to deal with the other two, though?
> > that time I'd move it to checking and call it income. Perhaps that is
> > unwise, though? And if I do that, every contribution to Summer
Adam P Jenkins
in MoneyWell, which I was able to work around by simply closing the
document and re-opening it. It seems that in some cases MoneyWell
does not update its user interface when the data changes until you
close a document and re-open it. This should definitely not be the
case.
One example I described in my message below, where I created a
transfer from my checking to my savings, and assigned the expense side
of the transfer to a bucket, but the displayed amount still in the
bucket did not change. Simply closing the document and re-opening it
caused the bucket to now correctly display the amount of the transfer
as having been drained from the bucket.
I was not able to reproduce this bug in a sample document I created
for that purpose, so I can't give you an exact sequence of steps to
follow to reproduce the problem. If I find one I'll send it to you.
Adam
Kevin Hoctor
> Update: It turns out the problem I was having is due to a definite bug
> in MoneyWell, which I was able to work around by simply closing the
> document and re-opening it. It seems that in some cases MoneyWell
> does not update its user interface when the data changes until you
> close a document and re-open it. This should definitely not be the
> case.
>
> One example I described in my message below, where I created a
> transfer from my checking to my savings, and assigned the expense side
> of the transfer to a bucket, but the displayed amount still in the
> bucket did not change. Simply closing the document and re-opening it
> caused the bucket to now correctly display the amount of the transfer
> as having been drained from the bucket.
>
> I was not able to reproduce this bug in a sample document I created
> for that purpose, so I can't give you an exact sequence of steps to
> follow to reproduce the problem. If I find one I'll send it to you.
Adam,
I believe this has been fixed in 1.4.4. You can test it by downloading
it from here:
http://nothirst.com/moneywell/dlmwbeta.html
Sorry for the confusion.
Peace,
Kevin Hoctor
ke...@nothirst.com