Quick question re splitting bills and borrowing/lending money

[Derek Atkins]

hi,

please try to put line-endings in at around 72 chars... long
lines are hard to read...

y7anect001 at sneakemail.com writes:

> Thanks, Derek and Roland, for your comments.
> 
> As for my fiancee and I combining our finances, we're in a pretty odd situation and I don't think that'd quite work -- the reasoning is kind of convoluted and involves my complete lack of credit history in this country.  Besides, it's a scary thought and we haven't discussed it yet.  :)
> 
> In response to Derek's post, is it absolutely necessary to create
> two accounts, Assets:Fiancee and Expense:Fiancee?  It's not really
> clear to me what the value is in having both.  Don't I circumvent
> this by using Split Transactions like so?

I presume you mean "Liability:Finance" and not "Expense:Finance"...  Do
you necessarily need it?  No..  In some levels a Liability is a "negative
asset".  So yes, you could just create a single account (either asset or
liability) and then use it in both ways.

> Lunch ($20 total) -- Split Transaction -- 
>     Expenses:Dining  10 0
>     Liabilities:Fiancee  10 0
>     Assets:Wallet Cash  0 20
> 
> (This is the case where I pay for lunch for both of us and she intends to reimburse me half).

Yes, you could do this.

> Again, many thanks for the help, it's definitely appreciated.

-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available