[moneydance] Envelope budgeting

[Brett Russ]

I'll admit I'm a bit confused at this model.  I understand the
concept...putting money into virtual envelopes which are available for
certain expenses.  But why can't we do this with the MD budget
manager?  Calling expenses "income" will turn my brain upside down :-)

I've asked for an enhancement to the budget manager to allow us to
budget for a group of expenses via a parent expense category rather
than needing to allocate a budget for each specific sub category.
This is detailed in:
http://moneydance.com/trac/ticket/958
and someone knowingly duped it in:
http://moneydance.com/trac/ticket/1289

I've been silently hopeful this is slated for MD 2008 so I can start
using the budget manager again.  Would this enhancement solve your
dilemma too?

-BR

On Dec 6, 2007 6:10 AM, Graham Borland <graham at moonbog.net> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm a refugee from Mvelopes who have just canned their UK service.
>
> I have been investigating ways to make Moneydance use enevelope-style
> budgeting rather than its built-in budget manager. I have written up
> some notes here:
>
> http://moneydance.com/trac/wiki/Envelope_Budgeting
>
> It involves using categories as budget envelopes, but they all have to
> be Income categories (rather than Expense) to make the numbers work. So,
> when you have money available to spend in a certain category, it shows
> up with a positive balance, and when you've overspent it is negative.
> You have a special Income Cash Pool category (borrowing Mvelopes'
> terminology) to which all income is assigned, and from there you split
> into the various envelopes.
>
> I'm still working on the Wiki page and making sure the technique works.
> It's a bit fiddly - in some ways you're fighting against Moneydance
> rather than working with it. I find myself getting confused sometimes
> when transferring between envelopes; I can never remember if the
> transfer amount goes in the Increase or Decrease column.
>
> Let me know your thoughts.
>
>
> --
> Graham Borland
> graham at moonbog.net
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