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Getting started with Budget

chefjoanne

Is there a good video out there? I'll have a lot of questions but find it's better to watch a few videos and play around first. One question is...where did the "Everything else" category come from and how to get rid of it in my budget. Thank you

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Scooterlam

I'm not so sure that it is possible to eliminate this Everything Else category in both the Annual view and Graph View. In my test file, I can eliminate it in the Annual view by only budgeting for the top level category. However, Everything Else still shows in the Graph View, with all of the "off budget" spending detail.
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You might be able to filter some of this by selection of accounts and categories to be included in your budget. This feature is new within the last few years.

Perhaps the only way to eliminate "Everything Else" is to budget for ALL the expense categories you will use during the year. In other words, ensure that all of the categories you use to track spending are in your budget.

For me, this is not practical to set and manage a budget for small, incidental expenses, as I state and illustrate in the link I provided in the earlier post. Having just one Everything Else Category gives great visibility to these off-budget expenses and makes the budget manageable..   See image below that illustrates how I use Everything else to catch the small stuff.

Have you tried to consolidate the (potentially) many Everything Else sub-categories in to one budgeted Everything Else category? See image. Help us understand your aversion to using the Everything Else category.

Forgot to mention before, if you new to budgets, there is a pretty decent budget help section in Quicken, as an additional resource. Also, there has been a fair amount of discussion on this Everything Else feature in the community, both pro and con!

All comments

Rich_M

@joanne Search YouTube for Quicken Budgeting, you will find a number of helpful videos there.

The Everything Else category is a catch all for any income or expense that you haven't budgeted for.

Scooterlam

@joanne

Also, feel free to search the community for help or post specific questions you need help with.

Here is a post on how I use the Everything Else category - I made it a budgetable category and as such, I have only 2 of these - one in each category group. Makes things more manageable yet still allows me to see all of the small, "off-budget" expenses. https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/19214239#Comment_19214239

chefjoanne

Thank you very much.

chefjoanne

Scooterlam....I really don't want Everything Else to appear in my budget at all. Do you know how to prevent that from happening? Thank you

Scooterlam

Rich_M

@Joanne I'm not sure why you are so averse to the Everything Else line item in your budget, it is there to alert you to unbudgeted income/expense categories that may be making a significant impact to your bottom line, categories that you may have forgotten about or may need to include in your budget to manage your finances properly.

I think this line item is very important, and if eliminated could give you a very distorted view of your financial health.

Instead of fighting this well designed feature, work with it.

chefjoanne

Thank you for your response. The "Everything Else" category is collecting everything that is "Income". IE Salary, Social Security, Earnings from Investments....items that have no place being in my Budget. It's one thing to have expenses show in Everything Else. That allows me to click on it and assign it to an expense category. What to do when it's collecting income items? Thanks.

Scooterlam

@Joanne Do you have any income categories or subcategories selected in your budget? Personal Income? Business Income? I cant think of a scenario where an Income "everything else" shows up without explicity selecting an income category. Perhaps you can post some redacted images to illustrate your issue.

Getting back to your use and management of the Everything Else category....Here is an older but still relevant thread that might help, specifically @UKR and my posts
https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/19214239#Comment_19214239

Chris_QPW

Joanne said:

Scooterlam....I really don't want Everything Else to appear in my budget at all. Do you know how to prevent that from happening? Thank you

If you aren't using the Starter version you can switch to the annual view instead of the Graph view and it doesn't have "Everything Else".

Scooterlam said:

Here is an older but still relevant thread that might help, specifically @UKR and my posts
https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/19214239#Comment_19214239

I clicked on that link and just get an error web page.

One thing that I don't like about the budget is the inconsistencies between the Graph View, Annual View, and the Budget Reports. And I also, like a lot of people believe the use of Everything Else should be optional, but they have never given that option.

Scooterlam

Chris_QPW said:

Scooterlam said:

Here is an older but still relevant thread that might help, specifically @UKR and my posts
https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/19214239#Comment_19214239

I clicked on that link and just get an error web page.

One thing that I don't like about the budget is the inconsistencies between the Graph View, Annual View, and the Budget Reports. And I also, like a lot of people believe the use of Everything Else should be optional, but they have never given that option.

That's strange the link doesn't work for you. Just tested it again and it's working for me.

I've seen some of the discussion(s) about Everything Else in the past. Can you give a scenario or two where a user would want to make this feature optional?

UKR

Scooterlam said:

...
That's strange the link doesn't work for you. Just tested it again and it's working for me.

This old discussion was moved to Archived Posts, an area which regular users have no access to.
I have asked the moderators to restore it to a regular category.

chefjoanne

Thank all of you for your help and suggestions.
I would love to send a redacted image of what's going on but don't know how to.

Chris_QPW

Joanne said:

Thank all of you for your help and suggestions.
I would love to send a redacted image of what's going on but don't know how to.

If you see a picture icon above the comment area you can use that. If not, drag and drop an image on the comment area.

chefjoanne

Thanks Chris....My problem is, I don't know how to take a screenshot and then black out the monetary amounts. I do see how to attach it once I've actually taken the picture. Thank you.

chefjoanne

I have a category called "House". One of the subcategories is "Property Tax". When I pay the property tax, I post to this account.
I'm duplicating this amount in the budget because I also have a savings account called "Property Tax Savings" where I save monthly to prepare to pay property tax when it comes due.
How to show the paid amount in the subcategory "Property Tax" but also account for my monthly savings to "Property Tax Savings"?
Thank you.

Scooterlam

Joanne said:

I have a category called "House". One of the subcategories is "Property Tax". When I pay the property tax, I post to this account.
I'm duplicating this amount in the budget because I also have a savings account called "Property Tax Savings" where I save monthly to prepare to pay property tax when it comes due.
How to show the paid amount in the subcategory "Property Tax" but also account for my monthly savings to "Property Tax Savings"?
Thank you.

Can you avoid the duplicate expense in the budget by removing the "Property Tax Savings" account from the budget, leaving the spending account where you actually pay the property tax in the budget. Go to Budget Actions pulldown, then Select Account.

Do you use the "Property Tax Savings" account as a "savings goal"? Is it a real banking account that you spend from?

Don B

> @Joanne said:
> I have a category called "House". One of the subcategories is "Property Tax". When I pay the property tax, I post to this account.
> I'm duplicating this amount in the budget because I also have a savings account called "Property Tax Savings" where I save monthly to prepare to pay property tax when it comes due.
> How to show the paid amount in the subcategory "Property Tax" but also account for my monthly savings to "Property Tax Savings"?
> Thank you.

Are you actually transferring money from your checking account to a savings account each month (1/12 of your annual property tax)? Show that as an expense each month, but you need to select Show Transfers in the budget settings. In the month you transfer funds back to checking to pay the property tax, you can capture that as “income” that offsets the payment of the property tax.

If you are not physically transferring funds, then just show the 1/12 of annual property tax as the budgeted amount and rollover the unspent so it accrues until the month(s) you pay property taxes. Mine are due half in April and half in October.