Goal and Future Transaction Question
For example a vacation goal in 12mo of $1200 which is $100 a month. After you assign the $100 to that goal what is the most common course of action? Are you just logging into your online bank account and moving that $100 to your savings account or keeping that $100 in checking?
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I wouldn't move $100 because the gains are so minimal. I would move $1000, though. However, I have a lot of categories that are not traditional "savings" categories that don't come due at the same time (lots of expenses like electric, gas for the car, even hobbies for which I build up a surplus during the low-demand months). That means there's a fair bit of that money that's not needed in checking and can be moved to a higher rate account.
I use the running balance in conjunction with scheduled transactions to project my checking account balance. When there's about a thousand (or more) that I won't need for the next month or so, I'll make a transfer. Critically, though, I'm NOT looking at the budget screen to make this determination.
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In short, most veterans don't synchronize an account balance to a category (or category group). It's simply not necessary and actually takes more work to do so. This blog post discusses this in more detail.
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dakinemaui Ok, I don't think I will link any accounts I was just thinking along the lines of I have $1500 in my checking and I account for all the money for that month and $100 of it is assigned to Vacation. Come next payday I now have $1600 because that $100 that I allotted to the Vacation fund is still sitting in my checking account.
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To rephrase dakinemaui , Categories are for allocating and pre-allocating expenses. Accounts are useful places to have your money reside while waiting for Categories to need the money. You will need to make your own determination of how much work you do to get your money to work for you (savings and investments) versus the effort of moving money around accounts to meet expenses.
