gnucash 1.6.1 questions

[Linas Vepstas]

Umm Couldn't agree more strongly with robert.  check-printing and
auto-bill-pay are neat features (which gnucsh struggles with), but
it misses the point of personal finance.

The point being: when you know *where* your money is going (food, 
rent, coffee & cigs), then you can control it.  This is particularly
true when you don't have a lot of money: college students on non-budgets
discover fundamental truths like:  new stratocaster== one-months 
beer&cigarettes budget.  So if you stop drinking at the pub, you can 
afford a new guitar. 

An imbalance account is a sign of not being aware of how money is being
spent.  It basically says 'this money disappeared into thin air', and
really means that you're missing out on the best reason to use gnucash.

--linas



On Fri, Aug 31, 2001 at 10:15:01AM -0600, Robert A. Uhl was heard to remark:
> 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
> 
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