Where would you put a new major appliance purchase for your home, not a rental

joan7910

Just wanting some opinions. I like to track my expenses and net worth as accurately as possible. Normally when I make a purchase it is either an expense or it is a transfer to an asset account, such as Kitchen/Appliances, Tools, Sporting Goods etc. And then occasionally I adjust the balance using depreciation expense. I track my inventory of items separately on an excel spreadsheet. So I just bought a new refrigerator for my home, it will sell with the home, so I don't want to transfer the value to my kitchen/appliance acct. It will not increase the value of my home, so don't really want to transfer it to that account, it is not a capital expense that I can add to the cost basis. I am thinking the best way to keep track of it would be as a housing expense, repair and maintenance. I also have a category of major expenses. I put my sons' wedding expenses in that category.

Scooterlam

I've always put these kinds of expenses under Home:Maintenance with a memo of <Brand> Refrigerator, since presumably your replacing a dated item.

NotACPA

Why does a new fridge, which will remain with the house, not increase the value of that asset?  I'd pay a bit more for a house with a new fridge compared to a house with a dilapidated  fridge.

q_lurker

Kudos for trying to track your net worth accurately. 

I don’t understand your reluctance to use your Kitchen asset account and depreciate from there if you choose. 

I also see adding it to home asset account. Ditto @NotACPA
In any case, your net worth does not increase by the full purchase price of the fridge. If that is what is most important to you, you might consider applying some form of immediate depreciation. 

Which leads me to comment that valuing a home for net worth is for me a total crapshoot. You can’t really know that value until you sell it.