Accounting for saving money to pay credit card monthly

[Matthew Vanecek]

<quote who="TC">
> TC > You CANNOT do what you're trying to do within the the overall
> ledgers
>
> RU > Not true; I've been using GnuCash to handle budgets for several
> years RU > now.  What I do is make my budgets sub-accounts of my
> chequing and RU > savings accounts ...
>
> Profound! That looks like an excellent approach. Original poster, ignore
>  everything I said and listen to this man.
>
> (Don't you just love it when the habit of a lifetime - well, ten years -
>  is shown to be a waste of effort :-) )
>

Personally I prefer the spreadsheet + gnucash approach (at least until a
decent budgetting component is available in gnucash).  I like keeping the
planning separate from the history.  Using the subaccount method precludes
any advance planning, since you don't record income until it happens.  I
like to know what I'm expecting to have and spend, so I know what to do
with the money once I get it.

But, different strokes and all that--there is not one "correct" way to do
it (for personal accounting), and each way has its own merits and
disadvantages.

ciao,
-- 
Matthew Vanecek
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5,(41*2),sqrt(7056),(unpack(c,H)-2),oct(115),10);'
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For 93 million miles, there is nothing between the sun and my shadow
except me.
I'm always getting in the way of something...