Hi @mmgalliv:
I am so sorry to hear about your home repair! I hope all is now well! What crazy days we are living in!
There are several approaches to carrying and paying off the credit card debt… Here are a few ideas, There are others. (These are simply methods of tracking the payments in Tiller, not advice for using credit cards, where the best approach is to not use them, due to their astronomically high interest rates…eeeyikes!. But given our circumstances in today’s world, I get it: we are all doing the best we can, right? Onward!)
BTW…if you are able, work to pay more than the minimum payment. Credit card companies laugh at us when we just pay the minimum payment. That approach is designed to make them rich and keep us in debt. Here and here are two posts that describe great Tiller tools for debt reduction.
If you don’t want to use these, but simply track payments to your credit card, try this:
First, when the original charge hits your transactions, create a category called, “No Category” and assign it there. This category should be marked as an expense, but also marked “hidden” in your Categories sheet. No budget is needed. (Use this category only for extremely unusual circumstances like the one you describe. Otherwise you miss the magic and freedom of tracking your money.)
If you have one large charge like the one you mentioned ($7k), and you aren’t adding any more charges to the card (hint), and you want to pay the balance off over time, develop a plan to reduce the balance as quickly as possible, depending on your cash flow by dividing the balance by the number of monthly payments you wish to make to eliminate it. Create a category in your budget exclusively for this item’s payment like “Credit Card Free-At-Last Payment,” and establish the budget equal to your payment plan. This way, you know you’re dedicating a portion of your cash flow every month to getting rid of that debt burden.
Each month, make a payment, and assign the outflow from your cash account to the Free At Last category. When your payment hits the credit card and appears in your transactions, assign that transaction to another category called, “Credit Card Payments.” Make sure this is marked as hidden and is a Transfer type. ( I am assuming your credit card account is a connected account.)
Alternatively, you could budget for the payment plan in the category to which it relates. For example, if the charge was for home repairs, use your payment plan to build the budget in your category for home repairs, and assign your payments there.
In either method, you will only hit your budget once, but keep track of everything. Continue to post all other charges to their appropriate categories as above, and go for it!
Does this help?
All the best to you!