pre-design-doc budgeting notes [long]

[Clark Jones]

Joshua Sled wrote:
> 
> On Tue, Jan 23, 2001 at 08:52:28AM -0700, Clark Jones wrote:
> | I haven't read the whole thing, but this caught my eye.  I'm wondering
> | if an enum might not be too restrictive here.  You've already missed at
> | least one frequency that applies to me, to wit, SEMI_MONTHLY.  My paychecks
> | come on the 15th and last day of the month.  There are a lot of companies
> | in the U.S. that use this pay cycle, at least for salaried employees.
> 
> The "wackiest recurring expense" mail was an attempt to ensure that something
> simple [like this enum] was sufficient.  Actually, I was more curious about
> the granularity of amount specification wrt recurrance freq [and amount-change
> frequency]...  I was spending far too much time not coming up with a solution
> for a highly-granular approach I was thinking of.  I think this will be fine
> until I/someone can figure that out, sometime down the road.

I didn't consider any of my periods "wacky", so I didn't respond.  Mine are
all pretty standard.

> I should have included this in that doc, but semi-monthly == bi-weekly.
> Maybe semi-monthly is the right term for it. [My paycheck is that way, as
> well].

WRONG!!!  They are NOT the same.  Semi-monthly == 24 times per year.
Bi-weekly == 26+ times per year.

On Semi-monthly, you ALWAYS have _EXACTLY_ two per month.  Some periods will
have 16 days, some will have 15, and (typically) one per year will have either
13 or 14 days (depending on leap year).

On Bi-weekly, you ALWAYS have _EXACTLY_ 14 days per period.  Most months will
have 2 periods, but at least two months per year will have 3 period ends.  Once
in a while, a year will have 27 periods end in it, meaning that there will be
three months with three periods ending in them in that year.

You might also want to add a "RANDOM"... my irrigation water account has to
have at least enough money in it to cover the water I want -- I get water
on a 13 day cycle (_that's_ bizzare), and sometimes I need $7 worth, sometimes
$9, sometimes $12, and sometimes other values -- it literally depends on the
weather and time of year (I haven't used any since about October).  When the
account gets down to about $10, I usually send the supplier a check for $50.
Is it a "recurring" cost?  Yes.  Is it a predictable one?  No, though if you
looked at it over several years you might see a reasonable average value per
year.

						Clark
-- 
Disclaimer:  The opinions expressed herein are mine and not necessarily
those of anyone else.  (As if anyone else would want them!)

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