This has probably been written better, but I don't think you want to use an Allowance account like that, unless you don't care about the types of things you buy with your allowance. For example, I care if I spend my allowance (in my case I call it discretionary money) on eating out, buying random technology, or going out for drinks.
What you're describing is "The Envelope Method", where you get a certain amount of money each month that you can spending without feeling bad about it. I recommend using a separate set of accounts where you put ALUSD (Allowance USD) that tracks your allowance spending without actually tracking the money. You add the ALUSD transactions as mirrors of your actual transactions. Something like 2019-06-01 "Monthly allowance" Assets:Checking -100 USD Assets:Savings 100 USD Income:Virtual:Allowance -100 ALUSD Assets:Virtual:Allowance 2019-06-18 "Sombody" "Shiny Toy" Assets:Checking -20.00 USD Expenses:Technology 20.00 USD Assets:Virtual:Allowance -20.00 ALUSD Expenses:Virtual:Allowance 20.00 ALUSD Then you can see how much of your savings counts towards the Allowance by looking at Assets:Virtual:Allowance and the money stays in the actual accounts that you are tracking. Such a system can get a little hard to keep in sync though, so your mileage may vary. On Mon, Jul 1, 2019 at 8:30 AM Stephan Brosinski <sbrosin...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi, > > I'm not sure how to structure my accounts for the following set of > transactions. Any help would be welcome. > I changes some account names to simplify explaining the issue. > > I have 2 asset accounts - asset:checking and asset:savings. At the > beginning of the month I transfer money > from checking to savings, easy enough: > > 2019-06-01 * "Monthly allowance" > Assets:Checking -100.00 USD > Assets:Savings 100.00 USD > > During the month I will have certain expenses which I'd like to pay with > my "allowance" from the savings account, > naturally the amount will be payed from my checking account though, > because that's were > the charge will occur, so something like this happens: > > 2019-06-18 * "Sombody" "Shiny Toy" > Assets:Checking. -20.00 USD > Expenses:Allowance 20.00 USD > > 2019-06-22 * "Sombody" "Another Shiny Toy" > Assets:Checking -10.00 USD > Expenses:Allowance 10.00 USD > > So money leaves my checking account, for an "allowance" expense. > Eventually, at the end of the month, I want to have a list of all my > expenses I consider a spending of my allowance > and then "pay back" my checking account from my savings account. So this > happens: > > 2019-06-30 * "paying myself" > Assets:Checking 30.00 USD > Assets:Savings -30.00 USD > > at this point the money actually leaves the savings account. Before that > date I only know that the expenses charged > on the "Expenses:Allowance" account will eventually leave the savings > account. > > Any way to structure this better? I was thinking of treating my allowance > like a "virtual" credit card which will > have to have a balance of 0 USD by the end of the month, e.g. I keep > charging my allowance spendings on it and then > pay it off at the end of the month. > > But if I have a post like this: > > 2019-06-18 * "Sombody" "Shiny Toy" > Assets:Checking -20.00 USD > Liabilities:Allowance -20.00 USD > > it of course doesn't work because I can't make the sum 0. > > Sorry for the complicated explanation, maybe it makes sense. :) > > Thank you, > Stephan > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Beancount" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to beancount+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to beancount@googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beancount/4505ee38-b6ea-43ab-ae04-bcd0e46deb9e%40googlegroups.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beancount/4505ee38-b6ea-43ab-ae04-bcd0e46deb9e%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Beancount" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to beancount+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to beancount@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beancount/CAFFHUgsmYvq%3DU1_-76PzorkQ5L8FMn9-eC0bOP9xBRQNaWNA2Q%40mail.gmail.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
