The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Ask a Mustachian => Topic started by: Philociraptor on December 28, 2016, 10:45:22 AM
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I'm wondering what category others Mustachians put cash gifts under. When we give monetary gifts we just put them under Gifts & Donations --> Gifts. However, I'm not sure what to put received monetary gifts under; usually I waffle between Income and Gifts & Donations --> Gifts ("negative" spending). What do y'all do?
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I feel like income makes more sense. If you receive only non-monetary gifts, you don't subtract the value of those from the value of the gifts you purchase. Also, it would skew your budget if you put it under gifts, and you wouldn't know how much you actually spent on gifts.
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I had the same dilemma. I put it under gifts, as negative spending. But marielle makes a good point, which is why I waffled. Putting it as income would screw up my spreadsheets more, though--so I went for negative spending.
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Income. All money that comes in is equal for allocation to needs and goals.
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I have a separate income item for gifts. Sometimes it gets confusing with the gifts spending category (say, in November/December), but it works itself out.
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I have an income category for "Gifts Received". Not that it gets much use - it's extremely rare for anyone to ever give me money. Going back as far as January of 2012 when I started tracking, that category has only had 11 transactions, meaning I average around two per year, many of which are around $20.
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I have an income category for "Gifts Received". Not that it gets much use - it's extremely rare for anyone to ever give me money. Going back as far as January of 2012 when I started tracking, that category has only had 11 transactions, meaning I average around two per year, many of which are around $20.
Same for me; "gifts received" in income.
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How many different types of income do you guys track? What about cash back rewards, borrowing money briefly from a friend, completing a survey for $10, etc? What about selling furniture/clothes/stuff several months after buying it?
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How many different types of income do you guys track? What about cash back rewards, borrowing money briefly from a friend, completing a survey for $10, etc? What about selling furniture/clothes/stuff several months after buying it?
My current categories are:
- Paycheque
- Pre-tax investments (i.e. company RRSP)
- Gifts Received
Those three encompass about 98-99% of my income. The remaining bit is:
- Interest income
- Bonus income (referral bonuses)
- Selling stuff
"Selling stuff" is an interesting category, because it basically only applies to selling really old stuff that's not getting replaced. That's because if I buy something and sell it within the same calendar year, I just offset the original transaction with the amount I sold it for (example - buying a video game, playing it, selling it a few weeks later). Or, if I upgrade something to a newer model, I sell the old one and use the proceeds to partially offset the new one (example - we sold our old TV and bought a new one with the proceeds).
I previously had a category for quarterly GST rebates when my income was lower, but don't get those anymore.
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How many different types of income do you guys track? What about cash back rewards, borrowing money briefly from a friend, completing a survey for $10, etc? What about selling furniture/clothes/stuff several months after buying it?
My income categories are:
-Paychecks
-Reimbursement
-Freelance
-Interest
-CC bonus (catch-all for any credit card income)
-Gift
If it doesn't fit into one of those it just gets the generic "income" label.