gnucash 1.6.1 questions

[Robert A. Uhl]

On Fri, Aug 31, 2001 at 08:57:42AM -0400, Haines Brown wrote:
> 
> I don't want to be argumentative, but I just can't agree. I'm too poor
> to have money flowing in and out of different places. Once a month a
> Social Security check is deposited for me, and once a month I make out a
> bunch of checks. All the rest is just trying to get by on cash out of
> pocket. Surely there are many others in a comparable situation, people
> who are poor, elderly, disabled, unemployed, etc., who need a personal
> finance application that does not presume one is a capitalist.

The problem is that an imbalance account is the sign of an
error--money is flowing from your bank account into the ether, or
something.

I started using gnucash in my final year of college.  Up to that point
my finances had been much like yours: receive student worker payment,
cash it and spend all month.  But with gnucash I set up an income
account to represent my work-study income, a cash account to represent
my cash and a bunch of expense accounts.  I started watching where my
money was going--and I learned from it.  I finished my senior year of
school on a much sounder financial footing than ever before.  I'm now
quite a bit in the black, due in part to the insight which gnucahs has
given me regarding my finances.

Trust me, the effort's worth it.  Even if all you have are the four
accounts Income, Expenses, Cash and Chequing you may gain a benefit.
I'm guessing that your current setup is Cash and Chequing, and that
when you write a cheque you push that money into imbalance; when you
receive a SS cheque you pull it from imbalance.  Create a new ledger,
create the above four accounts, set the register to single-line and
try it out.  I'm certain you won't look back.

-- 
Robert Uhl <ruhl@4dv.net>

Complete sentences are so Q4'99.  --www.enormicon.com