Quickenheadus Neuroticus

Neurosis Of A Fellow Quickenhead When mail ordering items of two categories in one shipment, should the shipping and handling charge be split, prorated, go to the category with the more expensive item or in a seperate "Shipping Cost" category? Is food and drink bought for a party a regular "Groceries" or "Liquor" expense or does it belong in the "Parties" category? Does a T-shirt bought on vacation belong to the "Clothing" or the "Travel:Souvenirs" category? Should a federal tax refund be put under "Tax:Fed" as income or into a non tax-related category or into "Tax:Fed:1040"? What is the exact definition of an applicance? A tool bought for the electronics hobby, should it go under "Tools" or "Electronics"? When you suddenly think of new sub-categories, is it worth it going back all these years and splitting out all past expenses? Does the cover charge for a music club properly belong to "Entertainment:Bars" or "Entertainment:Concerts" and how do I keep track after all these drinks? Can money spent on a jukebox be added safely to "Entertainment:Arcades"? How do you account for the loose change in a foreign currency brought back from an international trip? When mailing a birthday present, does the postage go into the "Postal Expenses" category or should it be thrown in with "Gifts:Birthday"? How To Tell If You're A Quickenhead At the supermarket check-out you group the items by either taxable/non-taxable or by category so that it is easier to split out the receipt later. You then compute the proper sales tax for the taxable items of the same category. You constantly have an uneasy feeling about assigning expenses to your categories. "Does it really belong in that category and how have I done it in the past?" followed by a quick transaction report on anything matching "tooth" (as in toothpaste). When adding new categories you immediately proceed to resaving all of your memorized reports so that they don't prompt you with "categories have changed" in the future. You pay your bills on the day they arrive just so you can enter the expense right away. The fun of ordering pizza is that you can enter another expense. After reconciling your bank savings account, you change the Payee field of the "Interest" entry to the actual name of your bank. You manually put "DEP" into the Num field of deposit entries made via scheduled transactions. You spend hours entering detailed budget information, then care little all year about actually staying within the budget (kinda like the government only that your boss doesn't shut down the office for you because of it...). You've got the "Clothing" category split into at least 8 clothing sub-categories. You separate pay phone expenses from the phone bill you get at home. Not to be a total geek you don't keep track of the pennies in the penny jar. However, you properly enter a $0.06 expense under that mysterious and naughty "Misc" category before transfering the coins from the cash account. For every airport parking or pay phone expense, you properly enter the city and airport name as the payee and you try to remember the names of the merchants you buy coffee and newspapers at. Traveling means keeping a notepad and pen handy at all times not to lose track of the cash expenses. Cash spending abroad in a foreign currency is pure hell. You opened a "Pets" and a "Swimming Pool" category although you have neither one. However, you put bird food under the "Pets" category. You split the "Guns" category into "Guns:Accessories", "Guns:Ammo" and "Guns:Guns" and you don't even have a gun. You have three levels of sub-categories under the "Video" category. You use the financial calendar.

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