What are your recommendations for categorizing bi-monthly IRA contributions on the Categories tab so they’re coded properly on the Transactions tab? Technically it’s not an expense but it’s a transfer. It seems like marking it as a transfer will decrease the ‘net worth’ figures even though these transfers are going into accounts that aren’t linked into Tiller on purpose.
Thanks!
There is absolutely nothing you can do on the categories and transactions tabs that will impact your net worth in Tiller. It is likely a transfer. Why not link the account to Tiller?
Thanks for your insight. I’m guessing it’s a transfer too. Reason for not link our accounts into Tiller is because we want to use this as a budgeting tool; too tempting to look at the market fluctuations on a regular basis and want to change something.
There are many ways to deal with that, some people just simply assign them to a hidden category. I think a “very correct” way of handling them is to categorize the initial deposit to your IRA as income. Really, that’s what it is. It’s money you earned that isn’t reflected in the deposit from your employer, even though you can’t freely spend it. Then when you make a purchase of a stock, fund, what have you, that would be an expense. You spent money and received something in return, so it’s truly an expense like any other.
But all that can be cumbersome, thus so many just don’t deal with it.
Tiller is so much more than just budgeting. Like me, many use it for tracking. Regarding your temptations, just link the account and then read a couple of articles or a good book on behavioral finance. Cheers.
Here are also a couple other existing threads on this subject: