How to Enter a Mortgage Payment in my Budget?

NotFrankB

Most entries in my budget are pretty straightforward. My car loan payment, for example, is the same amount every month. My grocery bill varies week to week but averages out over the long term.

Mortgages are different. My mortgage payment is the same each month but the split between principal and interest changes every month.

The principal is categorized as a transfer to the account representing my loan, the interest is categorized as Mortgage Interest. I can add those two categories to my budget individually, but I can't think of a way to combine them into a total that would represent my monthly payment.

I suppose I could budget for them separately based on my January split and just accept that I will be over budget for one and under budget (by the same amount) for the other in each subsequent month. Or I could manually adjust the budget so that each month uses the correct split for that month.

I was wondering if I might be missing a more elegant solution.

Boatnmaniac

Since you have a mortgage loan account set up and it appears you have a Loan Reminder set up that gets entered into your checking account, there is a simple way to get the total loan payment added to the Budget but it will not show the breakdowns between principal, interest, etc.

Above the budget on the right, click on the Budget Actions button and then click on Select Categories to Budget. In the popup that opens, click on Detailed Loan Payments, check the box for the applicable Mortgage account and then click on OK. The entire mortgage payment each month should now be visible in your budget.

Does this provide you what you want to see in your budget?

Boatnmaniac

So you are looking to show the breakouts/amortization of the mortgage principal and interest in the budget or you are looking to show the total mortgage payment in the budget? What you are requesting is not clear to me.

NotFrankB

Let's say my mortgage payment is $100 per month (silly I know, but easy to think about). In January, the split might be interest = $95 and principal = $5 with subsequent months being $94/$6; $93/$7; $92/$8; etc.

What I want to do is show a monthly budget amount of $100 to reflect my expected monthly mortgage payment, with the interest and principal from my actual monthly mortgage payments combining to show $100 as the actual amount spent each month.

As I tried to say in my original post, I could just separately budget $95 for interest each month and $5 for principal in each month. Then as time went on, my interest actuals would be $1 less than budgeted for each month elapsed and my principal actuals would be $1 more than budgeted for each month elapsed. But that feels inelegant.

Boatnmaniac

(Removed post. I provided some incorrect information. I will provide the correct information later today unless someone else beats me to the punch).

q_lurker

In my world, budgets are guidelines. I’d likely ballpark the interest line line total for the year, fill in the transfer to loan portion to fit the total payments for the year (also considering escrow portions). I’d be looking to get the totals for the year right. If there off by a few percent, move on.

Boatnmaniac

Since you have a mortgage loan account set up and it appears you have a Loan Reminder set up that gets entered into your checking account, there is a simple way to get the total loan payment added to the Budget but it will not show the breakdowns between principal, interest, etc.

Above the budget on the right, click on the Budget Actions button and then click on Select Categories to Budget. In the popup that opens, click on Detailed Loan Payments, check the box for the applicable Mortgage account and then click on OK. The entire mortgage payment each month should now be visible in your budget.

Does this provide you what you want to see in your budget?

NotFrankB

Thanks very much, that is indeed elegant - and just what I was looking for.

HQ

Is this mortgage budget tracking capability/solution possible in Quicken for Mac Classic Premier v8.0.1. I don't see a Budget Actions button.

Boatnmaniac

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20475738#Comment_20475738

This is a QWin thread and I have little knowledge of QMac's design and capabilities. (The two are similar in many ways but they are also very different from each other.)

You might want to start a new discussion thread on this for QMac so it gets the attention of those with QMac expertise and knowledge. You can copy the URL for this thread in your new post for reference.

HQ

Thank you. I'll give the Quicken for Mac community a try.