Fairly new member to the club here, but could not find any topics that addresses what I am trying to do. Once my cars (just my wife’s car really) gets paid off, I take that same car payment and deposit into a dedicated “sink fund” savings account. Once the car is about 10 years old, I sell it and combine the proceeds with the car “sink fund” and this becomes the down payment on a replacement vehicle. I can’t figure out how to model that in Pralana Gold. For the moment, I simply have the deposits listed as a maintenance expense for the car. And I have listed a replacement vehicle in 2030 that will have a fairly low starting loan balance. But something about this doesn’t seem quite right. In fact, if I wanted to set up a savings account specifically to make a large purchase in the future (boat, hang glider, whatever), I don’t see how that can be done either.
@darteta There isn't a way to model that explicitly in PRC because it only models the account types specifically identified in the user manual; however, if you just imagine that your "sink fund" is part of your Cash account, the model will work just as you're wanting it to. Definitely do not list the payments as maintenance expenses. When the car gets paid off, the money that would have gone toward those car payments will start accumulating in your cash account and the cash account will be the go-to place for Pralana to seek the funds to cover the cost of a new car when the time comes (after first applying the residual value of the old car).
Stuart
@darteta Welcome! I agree with @smatthews51 in that the use case is more granular that you would account for in a long-range financial planning tool like PRC, but just make sure your cash ceiling is high enough to account for things like emergency fund, sinking funds, near-term purchases, etc and you'll be fine. If you're not already using a cash flow type tool I'm really living Simplifi, in which you can do things like saving for goals, sinking funds, etc.
@hines202 I am already a money-flow hawk with Quicken being my go-to for over 40 years. Looks like the Cash account encompasses all cash and can’t be divided up into different banks. No problem; I’ll adjust.
