New to PTA, and a few weeks into hledger (1.52). I have a setup that mostly works, but one problem I can't solve cleanly.
My wife and I each get a fixed monthly allowance to spend however we see fit. Mostly small things like coffee and books, occasionally something larger like a camera. Unspent amounts roll forward rather than resetting. We each keep a simple single-entry tracker on our phones that captures the spend accurately, and we do not want to add work beyond that. There is really no cash we need to account for, and for larger purchases (for example, a camera) from the allowances, it still makes sense to give those normal transaction lines on the main journal.
What I need:
- We need to track how much each of have left, monthly, with carry-over. This helps with some simple cash flow management.
- Individual transactions never go into the main journal, and never have to be identified during reconciliation. Keeping a $5 coffee out of the system entirely is the point.
- The allowance is one pool but the spending comes out of several accounts — joint checking plus several cards. Decoupling the entitlement from the payment mechanism is what makes allowances work for us, so I do not want to solve this by giving each of us a dedicated and exclusive card.
- The journal has to balance properly when the month's spend goes in as a single amount per person. We do want to run the household budget beyond personal spending rigorously.
Already considered and rejected:
- A dedicated card or subaccount per person. Solves it, but breaks the decoupling above, which we actually want.
- Balanced virtual postings in brackets. Tracks the entitlement fine, but sits outside the accounting equation, so my real accounts still will not reconcile against statements.
- Tagging allowance transactions at reconciliation time. This is precisely the work I am trying to avoid.
Is there a standard pattern here? I suspect I am missing something obvious about how to model an entitlement that is not tied to any particular funding account.