How to deal with 1-off purchases?

[brianguy]

another time someone would use "Not For Mint" is if they are doing frequent transfers between accounts, i.e. Checking & Savings.

you don't really need to see those unless you're not doing it frequently and sure why your balance of each seem to be off by a similar amount. they'll still balance out to be the same so the net effect on your overall finances is zero. I know I sure don't want to see them all, but at this time I have not yet hidden them using the "Not" feature.

[dracoaffectus]

For planned one off purchases, you can now create a budget that calculates a monthly amount for each month leading up to the purchase, and then adds that purchase to the month specified. For example, if you plan on spending 400 for Christmas gifts in December; you can create a budget for a one time expense of $400 in December 09 and Mint will attribute add a $100 budget for gifts each month that shows as though it's been spent leading up to December, where you will have a $400 budget available to spend.

I hope that explanation made sense. As far as I know, this is a very new feature to Mint.

[leefamily]

You can also do this manually with Mint's new "rollover" budget feature. You can figure out how much you'll need for that big purchase, and then put a smaller budget each month that rolls over. So each month, Mint will list this as an available budget that increases each month until you use it up.

Great for infrequent purchases, or once a year items like car registration, Christmas gifts, etc.

[hjjugovic]

I actually create a nonrecurring budget for it for that month. It's a pain, but it also keeps me honest. I think that Mint doesn't do a very good job dealing with nonmonthly expenses (I have a haircut every 6 weeks, and no matter how it set it up, that budget is broken), reimbursed expenses, or allowing your to save up for a big expense.
Heidi