Hi, happy to see you and hope all went well for DS at college and coping with meds, I know you were worrying.

I've used Quicken since it started. The newer versions are more detailed and allow more tracking options. You just choose the level of detail that you need and find useful. Do you care how much is spent each year on dog food? Do you care whether it's bought at W/Mart or some other outlet? Do you want to know how much you spend on food [edibles] and what percentage or actual dollar amount is spent in a food store on non-edibles like cleaning products & paper goods? Some of us add restaurant spending to the 'food' category. Is it important to you to be able to compare food spending in December 2010, 2011 to plan for 2012?

You likely need to track medical/tax related expenses and have a full picture of what is re-reimbursed or reimbursable. I track vehicle expenses as some are related to business and I compare previous years maintenance/mileage/repairs for each of the vehicles. It also helps remind me of upcoming costs. The 'split transaction' feature allows you to track categories whether on credit card or Bank card.

One year I tracked costs of working to verify the income warranted the expense. Can you imagine how surprised I was to discover I'm better at managing money and time when I'm working than when I've taken the semester off.

Hi Cyd, thanks for inquiring aboit DS, he is doing very well. It was a bit frustrating in the Fall cause he had to see a doc near his college to get his labs tracked, but it was good accountability. He lost a bunch of weight and was off all insulin by January!!!! Only takes the metformin now.

I guess I could just have one line item on the budget and call it DH. maybe one subcategory called DH-reimb. For the times he does shopping and i pay him back. Brain tired right now.

I like to keep the auto exp separate....the relevance for me is how much one vehicle costs, not the total gas we spend combined.

My biggest conundrum is how deeply im still involved in the joint finances. A year ago i was moving towards separation....physically in same hoise but separate bedrooms. Separate socially. But im still over involved financially.

Gabby, I shut down my Quicken computer for the moment, but if I'm understanding you, you transfer $120 to him when he shops.

How is that transfer set up? Is it just set up to a category? ie his name? Or is it setup to an account?

if it's set up to a separate account within Quicken you can then go into that account and allocate the entire $120 to groceries or split out the dog food or whatever.

My bf and I have separate finances but we do try and share the groceries. What I did so I could track how much we spend as a couple is create an account in Quicken with his name. I then just enter anything he spends for groceries (that I know about) in that account. I don't care if he spends it in cash or debit card, I just want to track it. For my own expenses, I have my own cash account and checking accounts that I itemize fully. Groceries are really all I'm concerned about with him.

hi Diane,
it's set up as a transfer, cause that's what I'm doing in online banking. I have the monthly allotment set up automatically, and the grocery monies I set up can vary in amount (depending on that commission check divided by the number of saturdays in the month.

whenever he shops for something 'else' I transfer that to him.

what I think I can do, but it's time consuming. go back in quicken and make it not be a transfer. it's impossible to 'split' a transfer.

I have been
downloading his account, to catch what he's actually spending. but I don't want to do that anymore. I don't need to know. But instead of deleting his account entirely, I am going back to those account to account transfers and changing them: in other words they hit the budget when I move the money.

Gabby, what are you transferring it to? An account? If that's the case, go into the account and put the expenses in. It's not like it has to balance or anything, you just want to track what he spends in that case.

I know it's really frustrating dealing with someone else's money especially when they are not that good at managing it! :-/

update: I deleted his account from quicken entirely. I went through and changed all the 'transfers' to expenses. It won't really solve my tracking for medical, but at year end, I can search his bank account and sort it to find out what he spends on medical.

helps just knowing I cannot split transfers, and it went from there.

OMG, I didn't know you were doing a major refit. The kitchen as the hub of the house creates chaos when the cupboards are emptied and come down, the sink is disconnected and the appliances are shoved to where ever they will fit!

We did that in our 1st house and a 2nd time a dozen years ago in the last house when I vowed n-e-v-e-r again! Inspite of detailed planning, nearly everything that could go wrong morphed to disaster. It was all those years ago but so traumatic it still makes me shudder.

Hat's off to you, if you need to vent we're here to listen. Gets lots of sleep and hang on to your sense of humor with both hands.