budgeting for items that do not occur evey month

[mburdsall]

I was wondering how you are suppose to budget for items that do notoccur every monthof the year. For example seasonal activities liek:

1. Lawn service
2. Vacation expenses
3. christmas and birthday gifts

Thanks

[phalangie9]

Mint isn't very robust in it's budgeting features. I wonder if a Mint employee could chime in one of these forums and discuss if there are plans to improve the budget features?

If not, I'm going to have to stick to pearBudget, even though I like the "Trends" feature SO MUCH!!!!

[chrobb]

Disclaimer: I don't do this now, but am just starting to, so take it with a grain of salt.

For large items like a vacation, I amortize that over the preceding months to save up for it. If I'm paying for it with a credit card, I amortize after the expense has occurred.

For the smaller, incidental items that I know are going to occur, they get picked up in my monthly budget planning. I don't do annual planning for things that are likely to be less than $100/month or that won't significantly impact my annual budget.

I do annual planning for things like:

savings goals
property tax (I pay directly)
vacation
large ticket repairs
large ticket purchases (e.g. camera, computer)
paying off debt


Monthly planning for:

Utility bills
paying off debt (I move the amount around)
subscriptions/memberships
groceries and dining
weekly spending allowance (separate for my wife and I)

[keithk]

An Envelope Budgeting enhancement would solve this and is being discussed here:
http://forums.mint.com/showthread.php?t=769

[mburdsall]

implement feature found at other sites like mvelopes.com, quicken and money plus.