MONEY AVAILABLE

It is assumed that you have a bank account(s) to which you make deposits and from which you will make withdrawals (write checks and/or have automatic payments made for you).

You are also likely to have credit card accounts and may have Savings account(s), Christmas account(s), and/or Retirement accounts.

See the discussion of these under the Tutor menu item to aid in determining which accounts you wish to include in using this program.

The total money available for expenditures in your various budget categories is the:

 - Sum of all your checking account(s)
 - Less the sum of all of your credit card account(s)

Note 1:  If you include cash on hand then you will need to enter an expense each time you spend cash.  To avoid this, you should create a budget category for cash, such as Allowances or Lunch Money, and then treat this as a single expense when you withdraw the money.

Alternatively, you should withhold cash for these minor items each time you make your routine deposits.  If you do this then these items would not be included in your budget (and your budget total should reflect only the amount you intend to routinely deposit.)

Note 2:  Credit cards may be used for payment of either short or long term items.

If you have a mortgage, you do not include this long term debt in determining your money available, but rather include a budget item to repay the mortgage debt.

Similarly, if you have a substantial credit card balance, it may be better to have one set of cards carrying only long term, or prior charges, and another set of cards which you pay off completely each month.

 - LONG TERM credit accounts, to which no new charges are
   added, may be treated like a mortgage:

   - Without including the principal balance in money available, but  
   - With a budget for payment of it's principal and interest.

 - SHORT TERM credit accounts (fully paid off each month) may be
   treated two ways:

               CURRENT CHARGE BASIS

     - Enter each credit card charge as an expense when made
         (Do not treat as an expense when the bill is paid)
         The Category Balance  and Total Balance will be reduced
         Subtract outstanding charges from your money available

        * This method is more time consuming, but up to date

               MONTHLY EXPENSE BASIS

     - Enter only the monthly payments as an expense
          Distribute each charge to a budget category at that time
          Do not subtract outstanding charges from money available
       
        * Easier, but you won't be as up to date
 
Note:  You could also continue only a single set of credit cards, with both a continuing balance for prior charges and additional charges each month which may or may not be paid off.  However, keeping track of pay off of prior items versus continuing items will be very complicated, and is not advised.

If you do not fully pay off your credit cards each month (other than those which are treated as a mortgage - see above), then you should probably not use this program.

If you do have a carry-over balance that you are not able to pay off, then you should divide your account into a long term part (with budget provisions to pay it off) and a short term part (which you budget for and do pay off each month).  Doing so would then allow you to budget for all of your expenses rather than running blind on your payments.
  
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