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Annual Spending Plan

DannyB

I would like to see an Annual* Expense Spending Plan that follows the same basic design as the monthly Spending Plan and is somehow integrated into the monthly Spending Plan -i.e. incorporates a means to fund the annual Spending Plan from the Monthly Spending Plan.

I'm not talking about an annualized Spending Plan in which I can see and plan out ALL income and spending, but rather a dedicated Spending Plan for my non-monthly fixed (bills & subscriptions) and flexible (planned spending) spending that I simply have to plan for. Funding for these expenses would flow from my monthly Spending Plan into the annual Spending Plan via something along the lines of the current Savings Goals contributions and ideally this process would be automated somehow.

Unlike others, I'm not a software designer or engineer - my training and expertise lie elsewhere, but I am confident someone at Quicken can figure it out.

*By "Annual" Expenses: all those non-monthly fixed and flexible expenses that MUST be planned for but don't currently fit into the QS Spending Plan that is focused on Monthly income and outflow.

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Spending Plan

Feature Request

Budgeting

Status: Active

Comments

SRC54

Well, it sounds interesting.

So would it be another item right before Goals for Irregular Bills, those that are quarterly, semi-annually or annually? Should it include Other Spending like emergency repairs and unusual medical bills? Could it even replace Other Spending? Long-term Spending?

Would you want the Spending Plan to average those across monthly plans? Or just be a Spending Goal that was a corollary with the Savings Goal?

DryHeat

I understand the problem you are dealing with — I have the same issues. But I would suggest solving it by enhancing the Savings Goals feature by allowing us to set up automatically recurring Savings Goals.

For example, I would like to be able to create a semi-annual property tax savings goal for a certain amount with a duration of 6 months and have it recur (start a new goal) in November and in May. I could then just adjust the amount each year based on new tax assessments.

Would that serve the same purpose for you?

RobWilk

I don't know the terms to search for, but I am sure this idea has already been suggested and has votes, I would suggest looking for it via search and having it merged with this.

I am on vacation, and have to leave for lunch in 4 minutes, so I don't have the time to search right now.

I will be back from vacation by Monday.

[removed - off-topic]

SRC54

@RobWilk I'll do a search. I know there are some that are similar but not sure they are quite the same. As you say this is a problem that crops up a lot, and people want some sort of way to "budget" or plan or save for these expenses.

I've done my best to even out my expenses. May/Nov are for insurance, Dec is Christmas, taxes are Oct/Mar, but let's face it, it is hard to plan for every contingency.

The best thing one can have is savings, but Simplifi is, I think, designed for younger people trying to get a handle on their finances who probably don't have a lot of savings.

I like @DryHeat's recurring savings goal idea, which would be simple and maybe satisfy what Danny is looking for.

SRC54

Here's the idea to which I think maybe @RobWilk was referring:

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/1199/break-down-annual-bi-annual-expenses-to-a-monthly-amount-in-spending-plan-edited-6-merged-votes

I was asking Danny if this is what he wanted, but I think his idea is a bit different. Or is it? @DannyB

Edit: No doubt there are other suggested ideas out there; as Rob says the trick is to get the right wording…

SRC54

@DryHeat Here's a suggestion for recurring Savings Goals. What do you think? You might prefer more options besides just annually.

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/2753/recurring-savings-goals-year-over-year-ability-to-restart-goals-edited

DryHeat

@SRC54 — You're right. I've now posted the gist of my comment in that other suggestion.

DannyB

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/comment/56437#Comment_56437

This is not a new idea and has been discussed in various threads in this forum including feature requests like the one you link to above.

To your questions:

",,,would it be another item right before Goals for Irregular Bills…" No. I envision this as a separate item altogether from the monthly Spending Plan. It would be basically the same as the Spending Plan but for non-monthly/annual expenses. It would be listed in the lefthand navigation menu as it's own its own section.
"Should it include…" That would be users choice as to what expenses are included. The Income section would be the monthly "contribution" to the total needed after setting up all expenses. Annual Bills and Subscriptions (however the user might define these) would be fixed expenses - semi-annual property tax payment; annual or bi-annual insurance payments; annual subscriptions like QS, MicroSoft 360, Costco membership, Amazon prime, Apple TV, Disney Plus, etc. The Planned Spending section would be used for irregular but necessary planned spending like home maintenance/repair, auto service/repair, gifting (birthdays, holiday, anniversary), you know all the stuff you know you will spend money on but not monthly. These expenses can be currently included in the regular Spending Plan using rollover, but as I have posted elsewhere, I would want a means to track the rolled over funds that is not currently available before this feature is helpful for me. I don't consider these necessary and for me planned for expenses as "Other Spending." These are known expenses that I currently use Savings Goals to prepare for.
Set up would be the same as setting up any budget/money plan. I know what me fixed expenses will be year to year - my billers make sure I know how much their services/products are going to cost me for any given period of time. I simply plug these numbers in the same way I do my monthly fixed expenses. I have a fairly clear idea of what I need for routine flexible expenses that I would include and just like I do for my monthly flexible expenses I would set an annual target amount that will be a close estimate and that fits within my anticipated annual income.
This would not replace an emergency fund or long or short-term goals. This would be simply an extension of the current monthly Spending Plan that provides the same function for non-monthly fixed and flexible expenses that are a part of everyone's money dance.

@DryHeat I agree, this could be solved with appropriately enhanced Savings Goals. Perhaps this could even be a sub section under Savings Goals and funding could be incorporated into the Spending Plan the same way Savings Goals contributions are. Like many, I currently use SGs to prepare for my non-monthly fixed and flexible expenses but… well you know the drawbacks.

SRC54

@DannyB Thanks for the clarification. I hope you get something. I currently have a Savings Goal but never have found them too useful for me.

I don't need a goal for savings. I just save. 😀 I have an amount in my head as a limit in my Checking account. When it is over that on the last day of the month, I move the extra to Savings. I did it just now.

The Devil is always in the details.

Jenny T

I would love a better way to save for and spread out the less frequent expenses as well. I lean towards savings goals as well and already kind of have a few set up this way. It's still more manual than I would prefer.

Here's a half (or less)-baked idea that could take advantage of the information already captured in other areas…I would assume that most of us have these expenses already set as recurring series. I wonder if it would be possible to assign a Series to a Goal. Maybe with the option to +/- by a set dollar amount or percent to account for possible billing changes year over year. I haven't fully thought through how the goal amount would calculate to account for the wide variation in frequencies or how it would update/reset year over year, etc. I do think users would have different ways they would want the goals split, with some wanting only one or two broader goals while others would want much more segregated goals (one for car insurance, one for annual subscriptions, one for seasonal lawn care, etc), so having flexibility in the goal assignment would be important.

It's just a thought and may or may not be a good solution, but thought I'd throw it out there to get wheels turning!

EL1234

I think that's a great idea. Maybe simplifi could suggest what the goal might be based on the recurring expenses that exist that are less than monthly. Obviously we'd want to be able to override it. And it should let us assign the recurring items to that savings goal so they are automatically subtracted from it. (It could even suggest the series that would be a good fit for this - the ones that are less often than every month.)

SRC54

I upvoted it as well.

DannyB

@SRC54

The feature request you link to above is indeed getting at the same issue I'm getting at here. As you may note that request has "6 merged votes" and if my request is deemed to be the same should also be merged.

Again, this is not a new issue and has been raised a number of times either as a separate discussion or as part of other threads over the past few years - actually since the launch of QS I would guess based on the date of the above linked thread and the number of merged votes.

My "solution" is a bit different as I'm sure there were differences in the 6 other feature requests - we are all brainstorming this issue and making suggestions of how we'd like to see it addressed.

One thing is clear - this is something that is part of everyone's money dance and as for me as a loyal user of QS, I'd like to see this aspect of my money dance more purposefully addressed and incorporated into QS… somehow.

SRC54

@DannyB Yes, I agree. My workarounds are to exclude these large expenses from the Spending Plan so they don't affect my monthly plan or I make them transfers for about a year and then go back and categorize them. Both are kludges.

Max1223

@DryHeat I originally used Savings Goals for things like Property Taxes, but the features within Saving Goals were lacking registers and transaction history. There is a request to make Savings Goals function more like a regular account so that you can see transfers in and out.

I've switched to using Rollovers for things like Property Taxes. I "Spend" XX amount each month that totals a year's worth of Property Taxes. That way, the money is accounted for in a budget. When the expense hits, there isn't a jump in the Spending Plan, but the jump shows in Reports, Watchlists. This is by no means perfect either.

DryHeat

@Max1223 I haven't used Rollover. With Savings Goal, I can see how much money is "spoken for" on the list of accounts, which I find helpful. Is there any similar way to see an aggregate amount of money that has been rolled over so I can compare it to what's in my bank account?

Max1223

@DryHeat In a rollover, you see how much is accumulating in the spending plan and it allows me to keep my Other spending as close to zero as possible. So its more predictable for me. It reduces the amount from an account when you actually spend it, so the "saved" amount shows in Planned Spend but no where else.

Either method will allow you to over spend or move dollars around since both are setting aside money virtually. So then its becomes a preference of how you want to manage it.

I don't think there has been any big update to the way Savings Plans work in a the last year, so while I'd like to try it, I think I'll still be a little disappointed and go back to using rollovers. Maybe I'll give it another test.

silentdream

Is this request basically asking for a "Sinking Fund" bucket in the Spending Plan? I could see value in it. Right now the workaround as others have mentioned is simply make a Savings Goal called Sinking Fund that is the sum of all those annual expenses and make sure you have the monthly savings for that goal always part of your monthly Spending Plan. Then just choose the Exclude from Spending Plan box on those the recurring annual expenses and simply update the Savings Goal by withdrawing towards goal when you pay each of the recurring annual expenses through the year. A bit tedious. I could see the value in streamlining this somehow to work more cleanly with the Spending Plan.

The alternative solution is simply let Savings Goals act as pseudo-Income in your monthly Spending Plan when you withdraw from them for the goal.

DannyB

@DryHeat @Max1223

Here is a record of my back and forth between SGs and Rollover FWIW:

Here, here and here.

Max1223

@DannyB thanks for consolidating those. So are you using SG's or Rollovers or both?

DannyB

@silentdream

"Sinking fund," "Savings Goal," Rollover" are basically the same, or at least can be used in the same way and yes this is a "request basically asking for a "Sinking Fund" bucket in the Spending Plan."

This request is to create a process to more fully integrate irregular non-monthly, semi-annual and annual recurring fixed and flexible expenses into the Spending Plan. Right now there are two means to accomplish this, Savings Goals and Planned Spending with rollover. See above for the pros and cons for both methods.

This request is to keep the conversation going with the goal that this aspect of pretty much everyone's money dance will be more eloquently addressed in QS.

DryHeat

@Max1223 There are a couple of suggestions for improving Savings Goals (I link one below). Together they have about 100 upvotes. But there is no sign of them being submitted for review (or whatever). It could be a long time before there is any real change.

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/1814/allow-savings-goals-to-have-full-functionality-of-other-accounts

DannyB

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/comment/56614#Comment_56614

I'm using SGs for now. After reading your comments above and rereading some of your comments in the other discussions, I may try rollover again at least for something like our annual gifting. My main "issue" with the rollover feature is the lack of seeing the designated amount set aside for rollover in my accounts list the same way I can see what is set aside for SGs.

As you say, this boils down to personal preference, but I'd still like to see a more elegant solution.

Max1223

@DannyB @DryHeat so I just did a little Test SG…while I like that I see the account balances shift, that's about all I like about it…oh well. Sticking with Rollovers for now. thanks for the input

MDZ

In Quicken Classic there was a screen to allow adding a calendar yr budget with months on top and categories in rows. . I think calendar yr when budgeting but Simplifi only allows one to add budget items each month (granted bills can spread across months but planed to spend does not). I have to enter an annual budget in excel ( with months on top and categories in rows) . That way I can see the yearly picture then transpose the budget items by month in Simplifi. I see Simplifi only projects for 12 months in advance oi I started my budget in January so at the start of year all 12 months match my excel budget. After that, it does not matter if on month drops off each month. I would like to see this concept in simplifi. Mike Z