
Why is current 'Total Spend' for the month not available?
'Total Activity' is shown on the budget page, but it's not as useful as it includes credit card payments. I'd like to just see how much I spent in the current page which should be front and center.
I can generate a report, but that seems unnecessarily complicated.
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What does it matter what Total Spend is? Realistically, your budget entries are both savings and "eventual spending" at the same time. (No point in saving for something you'll never spend.) This viewpoint neatly sidesteps the messiness that comes with non-monthly recurring outflows.
It's not uncommon for spending to exceed income in some months -- that's the very reason to save in the first place. However, looking at the normalized, monthly equivalent outflow amounts will smooth that out -- which is exactly what you should be budgeting.
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Gray Keyboard said:
Sure per category, but not at a high levelAnd that's what groups are for. I just refinanced my house and my total spending is incredibly negative this month. At a "high level" I must be doing terribly based on the metric you want to use. But nope, that expense was planned, I'm within my categories, so I'm good.
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We had this exact conversation on Reddit. The OP wants the Expenses part of the Income and Expenses report. But it's not a relevant number on the budget screen, because there's nothing useful to compare it to on the budget screen. Every month will have some sort of non-monthly spending which will make any comparisons to the monthly Budgeted amount useless.
For that matter, it's not really useful to compare that number to anything, and for exactly the same reason. I don't know how many times we've had to explain to people why they can have a negative net spending in a month, but it's because of Rule 2. I don't think I've ever had a month where I didn't spend some Rule 2 money, and it's never the same from month to month.