Background: I am setting up Goodbudget for my expenses only (instead of household expenses included) to simplify things. I think this will help me get the benefit of the envelope tracking which is a really nice feature of this app.
Discussion: The majority of my expenses are incurred using a credit card from the same bank that I pay the credit card balance with. However, the statement dates are different. When I started over the transactions I started with were credit card transactions beginning on June 7 which was the start of the credit card statement. But the first checking account statement is from June 15 to July 14. Also, this same checking account statement records the previous month’s credit card payment which has transactions that I am not including. I didn’t want to have the credit card transactions noted as separate from the checking account because this was just confusing me the first time I tried to use Goodbudget.
Question: This is a chicken and egg scenario. I really don’t care what transactions I am including from the beginning as I just want a clean start (beginning June/July timeframe). Do you have any suggestions for how to track personal expenses using both my personal checking account and the credit card transactions and still be able to reconcile only the checking account statements?
If I understand correctly, you want one long list of transactions in envelopes from two different sources (credit card and checking), but only want to reconcile checking, is that right?
If so, I would pull the checking statement prior to the ones you started with and only add the transactions that cleared between 7 June and the end of that statement. When you do your checking reconciliation, you may need to increase the previous balance (which may be 0 if it’s your first time) by the difference between the starting balance (presumably from your statement) and the additional expenses you added. This is a cumbersome start to getting things going, but only has to be done once.
Having said all that, you can certainly have different accounts reconciling on different dates, but if you want a totally clean start from a single date you’ll need to be a bit creative.
If you don’t intend to reconcile the credit card, don’t set it up as a debt account—instead treat it as if it’s paid off monthly. The advantage is that you can then use it within envelopes just like checking, but the disadvantage is that your available balance won’t be correct. You could game the system by setting the card balance to 0 at the start, as if it’s paid off, which will leave your available balance accurate (assuming you’re not accruing more debt on that card along the way). If you do though, be sure to budget the expected credit card payment into your expenses as if it were any other bill.
I know this sounds confusing and I’m happy to help clarify any steps that don’t make sense.
Hope that helps!
If I understand correctly, you want one long list of transactions in envelopes from two different sources (credit card and checking), but only want to reconcile checking, is that right? Yes. That is correct.
The advantage is that you can then use it within envelopes just like checking, but the disadvantage is that your available balance won’t be correct. You could game the system by setting the card balance to 0 at the start, as if it’s paid off, which will leave your available balance accurate (assuming you’re not accruing more debt on that card along the way). Having an accurate available balance is important to me. Are you proposing a second option with the sentence that reads “You could game the system…” which would mean setting up a debt account for the credit card? Or do I set up a separate account because even though the credit card is, well, a credit card, I will be paying it off each month? I don’t know where the card balance would be set to zero. Thank you!
If you’re paying off your credit card each month, just set it up as a credit card account that’s being paid off and you can use both it and your checking account for any transactions. Both will be accurate but you don’t need to reconcile the credit card if you don’t want to. You’ll pay the credit card by transferring money from checking over to the CC and both balances should be correct, with all of your transactions in the correct envelopes.
The only time you can’t use envelopes with a credit card is if you set it up as a debt account, so if it’s paid off monthly you don’t need to do that.
Does that help?