I feel like this should be simple but I am not understanding.
I make weekly contributions from my bank account to an IRA as well as a brokerage account. These are showing up as multiple transactions: one of out my checking, one into my IRA/brokerage, and finally the purchase in my IRA/brokerage of the asset. I understand that I can hide whichever transactions make sense by coding them as a Transfer.
My question is, when I set a budget for these categories because it is an “expense” now (I’m taking money out of my checking that I will not use for years) it obvious tracks like a normal budget. However, I am wanting to use the Cash Flow Forecast and Retirement Planner tabs as well.
Since the budget considers these things as negative, they are not auto-showing up as a POSITIVE option in my Cash Flow Forecast. I don’t know how to get these investments to show up correctly as a budgeted item but also show up correctly ultimately on the Retirement Planner. Any ideas?
The multiple-transactions scenario sounds pretty normal except the last one since the purchase of the IRA/brokerage asset is also a kind of “transfer”.
Note that you can also create custom transfer TYPES in the Categories sheet if you’d like to more discretely report on different types of transfers.
My question is, when I set a budget for these categories because it is an “expense” now (I’m taking money out of my checking that I will not use for years) it obvious tracks like a normal budget.
I’m hoping that @heather can help here as she is pretty adept at “budgeting for savings” which is what I think you are trying to do.
I came here with same question - were you able to figure something out? The simplest option is to categorize one of the three transactions as an “investment/savings” expense - I usually choose the one out of checking, and then code the others as transfers. Then in cash flow, you can override the investment/savings category to 0, which will cancel it out as an expense here.
However, I can’t figure out how to then project the growth of this money. I assume that by overriding it, you now have that amount cash flow positive for your income, but I could be wrong.
@morgan’s new Simple Investment Calculator may be a good starting point for projecting growth. It works on an account (not transaction/category) basis, so it may require a little work to plumb the starting balances you’re interested in into the template.