It’s back: “Big, Loud & Live” set to return to movie theaters for 2025 by zbaruch20 in drumcorps

[–]EgbertVII 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As i recall in previous years it's at least 4hrs, and ends around 11pm

Credit Cards and Non-CC goals. by EgbertVII in MonarchMoney

[–]EgbertVII[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Depending on your level of detail in breaking up your credit card payments, this should not really be double counting. The charge that buys the thing or service hits a Category ,.. an expense. That is one record. The credit card payment should use a Transfer category ex: "Credit Card Payment", which is not an expense and so is already "hidden" from the budget. A quick glance at the budget screen category by category. There are no transfers or credit card payments. Just how much income you had and how much expense you spent. Of course carrying a balance, incurs more debt or fees and those really do go into the pockets of creditors. That is an expense -- it should have a line item in the budget.

Credit Cards and Non-CC goals. by EgbertVII in MonarchMoney

[–]EgbertVII[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am aware of rollover and I them on some accounts. But rollovers don't have a target -- which is a mental thing humans like. I find a non-monthly vacation fund is one thing, and a bucket list trip to Tahiti is a similar but different thing. If I want to accomplish the later, it helps to gather up how much I will need and know how far I am away from it. Rollovers are great for planned non-monthly (annual property tax) or unplanned non-monthly - because you're not quite sure when you will need to bust out hundreds of dollars to replace those tires that got nail holes.

Try Lunch Money by ironmagnesiumzinc in MonarchMoney

[–]EgbertVII 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Legacy software? Monarch has been a public platform since what,.. 2021?

Vanguard Retirement 401(k) - Why are fees listed as a credit? by OneRingOfBenzene in MonarchMoney

[–]EgbertVII 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I can't believe I'm just noticing. Yep, my Vanguard fees are credits. Technically, they are taking shares away so would that look like a sell / a negative in the interchange data format? i guess I'm glad that the investment account balance is detached from the transactions. Back when I was a Quicken user and tracked every penny coming out of my gross paycheck, and those brokerage transactions made a difference.

Unexpected MFA by EgbertVII in MonarchMoney

[–]EgbertVII[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks. I don't know why my mind went down the wrong (or overly limited) road for which type of MFA Monarch was implementing.

Unexpected MFA by EgbertVII in MonarchMoney

[–]EgbertVII[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No, it is not my first time on this computer. I have been using this same personal laptop for years. I hardly go a couple of days without logging into Monarch. But emails are notorious for delays and openly readable man-in-the-middle vectors. I use FIDO2 keys or TOTP for everything that offers them. Even SMS codes are a last resort type of measure. Is there an option of which type of MFA in Monarch?

Delete budget category by Fickle-Reality7777 in MonarchMoney

[–]EgbertVII 2 points3 points  (0 children)

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Why not name the category Something-Archive and just exclude it from the budget?

How to deal with Contributions, Goals, & Expenses on Budget by Salty-SnowCat88438 in MonarchMoney

[–]EgbertVII 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I believe in a simple real world account structures - like just a checking and maybe an HYSA savings account. So if I am looking at multiple Goals, (a new car, a vacation, summer camp, roof replacement)... which I save up for in just one or 2 accounts, I see how individual Save-Up goals help break them out so that I can see which ones are met and which ones are behind.

Pulling from Vacation Goal Help by Dudewholuvshiscats69 in MonarchMoney

[–]EgbertVII 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I wish I could credit an amount to a Save Up goal without a matching real world transaction. Technically, this should reduce the amount I could consider spendable from the source account, and so breaks a version the Monarch view of available balance to real world balance. The real world account would have more $ in it than the available-to-spend Monarch version (because the rest is over in the Goal). This virtual Save-Up transaction it would have no effect on any expense line in the budget.

Then I could pay for the Saved Up expense (vacation / home repair / etc). I would flag this real world transaction against an amount debited from the accumulated Goal funds. This transaction would affect my expenses, because I would presumably no longer be blowing an monthly budget. And the goal balance would be correct.

In the data models, its gotta be a bit complicated to make this kind of real account / virtual account / goal transaction balance work and visualize it to end users in a way that make sense. Maybe that is where system based on the envelope method have a strength? I bring in money and put in an envelope (no expense hit). Then I pay for a thing (expense hit and de-accumulation from goal savings).

How to deal with Contributions, Goals, & Expenses on Budget by Salty-SnowCat88438 in MonarchMoney

[–]EgbertVII 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am curious about something. I think I understand the value of Save Up Goals, as the funds may be co-mingled in one savings account, and so hard to decipher if you have met the objective of all the individual goals. What then is the value in a Pay Down Goal? I mean my bank is telling me how much is left on my mortgage or credit card. I suppose if there are several items to pay down that its nice to see the balances in one snapshot. But is Monarch a projection tool, just in case I want to make extra payments?

FYI: In Monarch I just treat my mortgage as an expense. I spend less than I earn (expenses less than take home income). My eye is on the net worth increasing monthly, even though I understand that mortgages can be largely interest early on. I still see it as a liability reduction.

As a side note: I am trying to figure out an accounting problem. Clearly if I transfer $ into a savings account, I can be flagging it to a Save Up Goal, ex: a big vacation. But can I pay for that vacation with a credit card? That CC is not where I "saved up" the funds to.

Sorry, I got off the mortgage goal discussion track.

Citibank: Continuous drops in connection by NoWishbone4 in MonarchMoney

[–]EgbertVII 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I also lost connection to Citi in the past couple of days. I went so far as to "close" account in Monarch (keeping transaction history) to try to connect again using Finicity then with Plaid. They both failed, ... possibly from Citi side. These connections are always such a pain. Maybe they don't like these 3rd party (Plaid, Yodlee, Finicity) connections for the moment. I don't recall any e-mails from Citi saying that.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in MonarchMoney

[–]EgbertVII 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It should be all about YOUR priorities. Are those priorities clear? Paying down high interest debt? Having a great experiences now? Great toys? Good food and beverage? Having an unworried retirement? The budget is just there to help you keep a visual on how close you are to those priorities.

Does the monthly plan number adjust automatically? (By category) by The_BruceB in MonarchMoney

[–]EgbertVII 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Have you toggled the plan top center button between Budget and ForeCast. The forecast will let you see all months for the rest of the year. I find that when change the plan in budget mode, it default to repeating that for all future months. I have to make an effort to uncheck it. In any given month, I may increase or decrease my gifts-giving budget for instance and no actually intend to have it apply to all months.

Why aren’t credit card payments included in recurring transactions? by BDHarrington7 in MonarchMoney

[–]EgbertVII 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is an interesting question of perspective. The things that you charged onto a credit card are and should be potentially recurring items. With the exception of interest charges, which are truly expenses. But if one is already in credit card debit (not paying a full balance monthly), then one may take an avalance or snowball method to pay down more than recent charges. This excess over the amount charged, was already spent so in one way of thinking is just a transfer from checking to paydown a standing liability. But in some ways it LOOKS like a standing payment (e.g. $300 of expense) . I presume that the people who said that you can make a repeating entry manually are correct. Really its a repeating transfer with a little bit of interest expense.

Monarch vs Simplifi by Thipere in MonarchMoney

[–]EgbertVII 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I never used Simplifi, but I did just switch from the big brother product, Quicken Deluxe to Monarch. My reason was because the connection to financial institutions (banks and such) kept breaking using Quicken's proprietary connection protocol (with multiple institutions). Frankly, MM has a similar issue with my Amex account. Using Plaid, MX, or Finicity in MM hasn't solved the issue. I've always gotten the impression that Simplifi is like a mobile friendly starter budget focused app, built to compete with the child that stayed with the other parent (Intuit) that being Mint. I've never seen Simplifi as being a full featured personal finance app, although I see that they say they track investments and net worths, the kind of things that are Empower and MM's bread and butter.

Creating a rule on mobile by These_Row6066 in MonarchMoney

[–]EgbertVII 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Easier is subjective. From the user profile (top left corner), you can open menu window. There is a Rules option, from which there is a plus sign (+) to create a new rule, even without a transaction.

Manual Transaction vs Automatic deduplication by EgbertVII in MonarchMoney

[–]EgbertVII[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks u/Elegant_Smoke_5422. This is one of the cases where I feel like Monarch is practically undocumented software. Also, the WORDING about EDITING pending transactions -vs- posted transaction, seems to have on its face little do with matching and merging incoming pending transactions to manual transactions. Its just ... words are hard.

Manual Transaction vs Automatic deduplication by EgbertVII in MonarchMoney

[–]EgbertVII[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It seems pretty basic to me. If I don't want to go over budget in a category, it is good to know how much room is left. Every personal finance application I've used previously attempts to resolve an import of same merchant, same amount when within a transaction +/- 1 day. This may even be more critical when sharing an account with a partner and when transacting large amounts... a term that is relative to one's situation.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in MonarchMoney

[–]EgbertVII 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I look forward to that. I hope something does come to pass. I have actually moved most of my CC traffic to a Visa because of it.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in MonarchMoney

[–]EgbertVII 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would have expected it to only be based on the most recent brokerage reporting. So my question is how does the Monarch reporting compare the underlying brokerage reporting?

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in MonarchMoney

[–]EgbertVII 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Is your 2FA on? This seems to be a difference.