budgeting

[Dave Peticolas]

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On Mon, 2001-10-01 at 08:31, Derek Atkins wrote:
> nigel_gnucash-devel@unos.net writes:
>=20
> > > the charge is made.  If the bucket has the three values "allocated",
> > > "used:held" and "used:disbursed", then the charge moves $65 from
> > > "allocated" to "used:held", and the Checking -> Credit Card xfer move=
s
> > > it from "used:held" to "used:disbursed".
> > >=20
> > > If we can do more interesting analysis with those three distinctions,
> > > we should have them.
> >=20
> > Oh, I'm not sure I like the way this is going.  I can see how that data
> > would be interesting, and why you'd bring it up (and there may be a
> > really good economic reason, too - I'm not an economics guy), but I'm
> > concerned that pretty soon my *single* credit card payment needs to be
> > associated with expenses *all*over*the*place*.
> >
> > I guess we could assume that a credit card payment changes the status o=
n
> > all the transactions between the previous payment and the current
> > payment, but that still adds a level of complexity I'm not sure we need=
.
> >
> > What would you use the "used:held" and "used:disbursed" numbers for?
> > Some kind of "this money as been logically spent but physically exists"
> > calculation?
>=20
> Well, it depends.  Do you pay off your credit cards every month?  If
> so, then sure, your single transaction (Checking -> CreditCard) can
> convert all of your allocated payments from 'held' to 'disbursed'.
> However, if you maintain a balance on your credit card, that implies
> that you are post-paying some of your budgeted items.

I'm coming to this debate late, but I don't understand the
purpose here. Are you saying the budgeting system doesn't
consider items to have been paid for until you pay your
credit card? That is *completely* wrong. You paid for
those items when you bought them on your credit card,
and simultaneously borrowed money to do so, and the
budgeting system should reflect that.

Pretending that you didn't really pay for them yet
is why so many people get into trouble with their
credit cards.

dave


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