How to record spending funded by loans

Spoiler - I don’t use debt often so be gentle. I am going to use our HELOC to fund a kitchen remodel. I will record the drawdowns as “transfers” between the loan account and checking. But I am struggling how to record both the spending for the remodel and the eventual loan payments. I think the spending should be recorded as a current period expense, but I don’t want to double count by also expensing the loan payments? Help?

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You could record the HELOC payments as a transfer. Expense any interest and record principal as transfer.

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It makes sense to me to record the drawdowns from the HELOC as an income category, honestly. Otherwise, money is appearing in your checking account seemingly out of nowhere. Maybe make a category separate from your normal income, like “Income - Loans”?

If you do this, the spend for the remodel would be covered under this income, avoiding a “double count” situation. Then, when it’s time to repay the loan, you create an expense category for it (“HELOC Repayment” or whatever), and categorize the repayment transactions to this category.

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I think @thomasnjefferson’s recommendation makes the most sense in this scenario. Your expenses are the spending toward the remodel + interest. Everything else is just a transfer representing money moving between your checking account and the HELOC account.

Thank you all…I tend to agree.