How to track weekly variable public transportation bills?

tylermdunn

I live in NYC and regularly use the subway. The subway fare is capped at $34/week. The first 11 subway rides per week are $2.90, the 12th is $2.10, and all other rides that week are free. This means that I budget $34/week for the subway, which will be an overestimate on weeks where I take fewer than 12 subway rides.

I attempted to model this in Simplifi by making a weekly recurring bill for $34. This allows me to correctly forecast how much I need to budget for the subway. However, as my $2.90 and $2.10 charges come in, they do not associate with the recurring series. I assume this is because those values are not equal to $34.

This is not ideal because the charges are then treated as "other spending" rather than "bills" in the spending plan. I can fix this by manually clicking each transaction and clicking "Link to existing recurring," but that's labor intensive for up to 12 transactions per week.

So my question is, is there a way to automatically associate all of these $2.90 charges and $2.10 charges with a recurring bill of $34? I cannot see a way to do this using Rules. Or is there a better way to model this particular type of bill? Thank you!

ajbopp

I think the best answer I can give you is to make Public Transportation a Planned Spending item rather than a recurring bill. This will then be included in your spending plan, and transactions in that category will be automatically assigned to the Planned Spending item instead of the Bills and Income section.

That's how I track Entertainment, for example. I'm never sure what I'm going to spend or to whom, but I want my spending plan to account for $40 a month.

DannyB

@tylermdunn

There are so many variations on how expenses occur!

A couple of questions: Do you pay this expense each time you ride the subway with a credit or debit card? Does the NUC subway system have a rider card you can put funds on and use until the funds are used up?

If a rider card is available, then could you make a monthly purchase/deposit on that card equal to your typical monthly rider expense is? If so, the recurring bill would work for you.

If the expense is paid each time you ride up to the $34 weekly limit, then I think it would be better to set this expense up as a Planned Spending expense instead of a weekly recurring expense. I say this because of what you have pointed out. Simplifi is expecting a weekly recurring expense of $34 once each week but it appears this expense occurs more than once/week for different amounts.

By making it a Planned Spending category, Simplifi will capture each separate incidence of this expense as the month unfolds.

I would set the Planned Spending expense amount at $136 (4 X 34) or even $147 (4 1/3 X 34) since Planned Spending expenses are for the whole month. This way the subway expense is included in your monthly Spending Plan for the maximum you would pay. If you end up not paying the full amount for the month these unused funds can be returned to your available.

tylermdunn

Thank you both! I have changed it to be "planned spending", which perfectly captures everything that I need.