Budgeting prototype

[Derek Atkins]

Dale Alspach <alspach at math.okstate.edu> writes:

> >I'm not convinced of this.  When I budget "$250 for food" I
> >don't really care whether it's being paid for by cash, check,
> >credit card...  All I care amount is that I'm spending $250
> >on food.
> 
> Reread my post. I had no objections to the food, rent or income entries. My
> objection was to changing asset and liability accounts directly with no
> indication of whether this was done by moving assets and liabilities
> around or allocating
> income/expenses. It seems to me that there is a big difference between budgeting
> only income and expenses which tells you whether you have new money to save,
> invest, etc., or will need to tap savings or other assets to make ends meet, and
> saying somehow this asset or liability is changing by this much.

What about paying a mortgage?  I don't really consider paying that
down to be a transfer of assets (even though technically it is) -- I
just look at it as an "expense" where I'm reducing the outstanding
balance on the Liability.

Obviously my house equity increases at the mortgage liability
decreases, but for my budget I don't really care about that.

I also don't particular care how I pay for the liability, either,
although I do sort of see your point about where the money is coming
from; transfering from one liability to another seems not to really do
much good (although it might be important for budgetary reasons?).

> Dale Alspach

-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
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