budgeting

[Dave Peticolas]

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On Mon, 2001-10-01 at 14:46, Daniel Hagerty wrote:
>  > But isn't that completely arbitrary? I mean, unless you bought one
>  > single thing with your card, saying that "I paid off this but not
>  > that" just seems to be a mental fiction that doesn't serve any
>  > purpose.
>=20
>     Your credit card company will disagree.  They've got to manage an
> ordering for partial payments, even if you don't.

Ah, so you would enter that information when you get your
subsequent statement. That's a little different than just
making up your own assignments.


>     While "completely arbitrary", so is inventory management, tax lot
> accounting, and many other things that show up in accounting.
> Nonetheless, questions arise that need you to make an arbitrary
> decision to arrive at an answer.  You may need to record some data to
> support the arbitrary decision.

But for, say, tax lot assignment you are still limited, at least
in some places, by the kinds of assignment you can use, and
your choice has a real effect -- your tax bill. So it's not
completely arbitrary.


>     If the answer is "don't ask that question", fine.  There may be
> interesting things that can be derived from this kind of data.  You
> can't ask if you don't have it.

Sure. And if the data really is useful to lots of people, or the
infrastructure that is created is generally useful for other things,
then by all means.

dave


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