Quick question re splitting bills and borrowing/lending money

[Roland Roberts]

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>>>>> "da" == Derek Atkins <warlord at MIT.EDU> writes:

    da> y7anect001 at sneakemail.com writes:
    >> I've gotten reasonably familiar with gnucash and understand
    >> split transactions (at least as far as salaries).  I'm not sure
    >> how to deal with expenses shared with my fiancee, however...
    >> 
    >> At first I thought it'd be pretty straightforward -- I figured
    >> I'd create an entry for her under Liabilities, treating our
    >> situation like a short-term loan, and just throw everything
    >> related in there.  Things are seeming more complicated though,
    >> and I'm not sure how to handle them.

    da> Well, honestly, the best way (from a relationship standpoint)
    da> is "don't"..  However....  (note, I'm assuming you are only
    da> keeping track of YOUR half of the finances here)....

    >> Any suggestions will be a huge help.  Consider the following cases:

Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I would agree with Derek --- don't try to
account for it.  For most of these cases, I would just write off the
dinner/lunch/whatever expense as something *I* spent and not try to
even it out.  You *did* say this is your fiancee, not just a friend or
girl-/boy-friend.

If it is important to you to put money in the pot for every outing, by
all means do so.  In the long run, you should think really hard about
how closely you want to try to track mutual expenses.  My wife and I
joined our checking account late in our engagement period.  Now that
we are married, GnuCash is a mutual accounting system for us---she has
her "Pocket Book" account, and I have my "Wallet" account for cash
expenditures.

If you want to continue with the level of accounting you originally
asked, then Derek's advice will get you there.

regards,

roland
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Roland B. Roberts, PhD                             RL Enterprises
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roland at astrofoto.org                           Brooklyn, NY 11220

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