Tracking Money in Savings Account

[Wayne Bird]

Ian,

Thanks for your input.  You have some very good insight with MSMoney.  I was not using the features in MSMoney as you are.  It definitely sounds like it would've been beneficial to me if I was; I wouldn't have had to "tweak" it the way I was.  I'm moving away from MSMoney, though it still works well, it's a dead program now.  I figured this was a good time to learn more about GnuCash and figure out how to use it "properly".  The folks on this mailing list have been very helpful, and I'm much appreciative!

Since, I'm going to move towards GnuCash, I'm not going to try to re-figure out MSMoney at this point in time.

Wayne


> From: iwaddox at gmail.com
> To: wrbird at hotmail.com; adardis at gmail.com; derek at ihtfp.com; fireflys_98 at yahoo.com
> CC: warlord at mit.edu; gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> Subject: RE: Tracking Money in Savings Account
> Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2010 07:38:14 +0000
> 
> Hi
> 
> I have been following this debate with some interest, I fully understand the
> need to know which money I am spending, was it the generous gift from my
> long lost uncle,  and the need to know how I'm doing against how I have
> allocated my regular income.
> 
> I have been achieving both of these with ease in MS-Money using two features
> which are missing from gnucash, let me explain.
> 
> * Tracking Source Income
> I have been using the 'classification and sub-classification' feature to
> track source income against spending.
> 
> The generous gift is added to my savings account but classed as
> Source:UncleTom
> 
> Whenever I buy something using this money, usually something as a treat I
> would not normally buy, I classify it against Source:UncleTom.  It does not
> matter what money I actually spend, whether it be credit or debit card or
> good old fashion cash if I run a report of Source:UncleTom I can see exactly
> how much I received and how much I have left and most importantly I get a
> list of each transaction so I can see exactly what I've purchased and where
> and when. I've been doing this for years to track Source Income, DIY
> projects, holiday spending, Christmas spending and even business expenses.
> 
> The ability to add additional reportable information to a transaction is
> just invaluable.
> 
> * How am I doing against my planned expenditure?
> In MS-Money the account register, budget planner, bill planner (Scheduled
> transactions) and Forward Fore Cast tool all work together to help me manage
> my money.  Currently, right now, I can tell you the planned future balance
> of any one or any combination of my accounts based on existing data in my
> file for any date in the future.
> 
> I can see that if I spend something today that might have been unplanned the
> exact impact on my current account and whether or not I will have to make a
> withdrawal from savings to pay the credit card bill.
> 
> Each month I try to save for that rainy day. I have a scheduled transaction
> for the 1st of each month for my target savings amount and each month I can
> adjust this amount to ensure I save as much as possible yet ensure my
> current account will not go overdrawn before payday at the end of the month.
> 
> I love the way gnucash works and implements true double-entry book keeping,
> however, I do feel it would benefit from these additions to make it a true
> personal finance manager.
> 
> I have previously offered to help produce the specifications and do the
> testing but unfortunately I am unable to write the code.
> 
> Regards
> 
> Ian
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: gnucash-user-bounces at gnucash.org
> [mailto:gnucash-user-bounces at gnucash.org] On Behalf Of Wayne Bird
> Sent: 17 December 2010 03:13
> To: adardis at gmail.com; derek at ihtfp.com; fireflys_98 at yahoo.com
> Cc: warlord at mit.edu; Gnucash User
> Subject: RE: Tracking Money in Savings Account
> 
> 
> Perfect.  I'm getting the hang of it!
> 
> > To: derek at ihtfp.com; fireflys_98 at yahoo.com; wrbird at hotmail.com
> > CC: warlord at mit.edu; gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> > Subject: Re: Tracking Money in Savings Account
> > Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2010 21:03:43 -0500
> > From: adardis at gmail.com
> > 
> > Right. (Actually, I transfer it to my son's account: 
> > Assets:Current:Son's account, and he spends it from there.)
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > On Thu, 16 Dec 2010 18:26:03 -0500, Wayne Bird <wrbird at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > 
> > > OK, your subaccount might look something like this:  
> > > Assets:Savings:College Fund.  Now when you spend money from it on 
> > > something like books, does your transfer look something like this:
> > > Assets:Savings:College Fund -> Expenses:College:Books ?
>  		 	   		  
> _______________________________________________
> gnucash-user mailing list
> gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
> -----
> Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
> You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
>