Help with Planned Spending, Recurring, and Cash Flow

System

This discussion was created from comments split from:

Planned Spending Rollover: Share your feedback here!.

erikhulse

OK, I have another issue I am trying to solve. I pay my property taxes, HOA, various insurance typically on an annual basis. Previously, I set up a savings goal for this, but I was tired of having to hide the actual expenses from my spending plan. So, I removed the savings goal and set up planned spending with rollover enabled for the same amount. This way, I have smoothed out the expense and "paid" for it monthly rather than at one time on the spending plan, and I get to easily see the expenses in the planned spending section each month. However, for cash flow projections, I also have all these large estimated payments as annual recurring bills, so that when I project out my cash for the next 6 months, I don't forget about them and can ensure I have enough money in the right accounts. There needs to be a way to include planned spending in your projected cash flow, because right now, it's double counting my annual recurring bills with my planned spending, or there should be a way to apply certain recurring bills to the planned spending amount, so it doesn't get double counted.

UrsulaA

There is a feature request to include planned spending in cash flow. Check it out.

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/1651/ability-to-add-planned-spending-items-to-our-projected-cash-flow-edited-4-merged-votes

DannyB

It’s unfortunate but the loudest squeaky wheel that got the grease was roll over in planned spending. To keep from double counting you will either need to delete the recurring bills or delete the planned spending categories for these annual and semiannually expenses.

The new planned spending roll over feature isn’t designed for these annual recurring expenses. It is designed to address a (supposed) need to “smooth out” monthly recurring variable expenses. As far as these annual/semiannual expenses it’s another workaround option and the user will need to decide which way to go.

I toyed with the idea of doing what you have done but decided to stick with the Savings goal workaround for now.

My reasoning:

• With monthly SG contributions to an SG, I do indeed "spend" the money monthly consciously.
• I'm not worried about "forgetting" these expenses since I've had to pay attention to them for the past 50 years many of those years without the aid of a digital accounting app like Simplifi.
• I don't have to worry about having enough funds to cover the expenses since each expense is paid out of the account I hold the funds to begin with, which again is a practice I've used long before using apps like Simplifi.

However, I I will probably set up one of my annual expenses as a Planned Spending roll over just to see how it will work.