Tracking Money in Savings Account

[Wayne Bird]

Derek,

Great questions!  This is helping me see things from your, and obviously others, perspective.

> Let me rephrase this question..  Why is the savings you got from your
> Inheritence any more important than the savings you get from, say, your
> Salary?  Why do you need to know "I spent $5236 of my $10000 Inheritence"
> versus "I spent $5236 of my Savings"?

I guess it's because I'm anal about everything.  I want to know exactly where my paycheck went.  If I get a $5000 bonus for work, I want to know exactly how I spent that specific money.  Let's say my wife receives $10,000 inheritance, I need to account for each cent that was spent and where it was spent.  My wife receives money from relatives, gifts and such, I can't just lump that money in our savings account and call it our savings (I would like to because I'm the spender in the family).  Does this help in seeing my perspective?  Maybe I have to use the subaccounts for everything.

> > Yes, definitely need to track inheritance balance.
> 
> Why?

See above.

Wayne




> Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2010 12:30:02 -0500
> Subject: RE: Tracking Money in Savings Account
> From: derek at ihtfp.com
> To: wrbird at hotmail.com
> CC: warlord at mit.edu; derek at ihtfp.com; gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> 
> On Thu, December 16, 2010 12:20 pm, Wayne Bird wrote:
> >
> >> >   * Assets:Bank:Savings
> >> >   * Assets:Bank:Savings:Inheritance
> >>
> >> You don't need this account unless you're trying to track how much of
> >> your Inheritance you have left.
> >
> > Yes, I definitely need to track how much Inheritance I have left!  This is
> > where I get confused; I would think everyone who keeps track of their
> > finances would want to be able to account for where all there income is or
> > has gone.  Why wouldn't you keep track of how much of your Inheritance is
> > left?
> 
> Let me rephrase this question..  Why is the savings you got from your
> Inheritence any more important than the savings you get from, say, your
> Salary?  Why do you need to know "I spent $5236 of my $10000 Inheritence"
> versus "I spent $5236 of my Savings"?
> 
> >> This can just be I:Inheritance -> A:B:Savings (unless you're trying to
> >> track your inheritance balance).
> >
> > Yes, definitely need to track inheritance balance.
> 
> Why?
> 
> -derek
>