My name is Joshua Jenkins and this is debris; a collection of tiny snapshots into my life. I make websites in Portland. I like bicycles, coffee, cities, running, beer, and letters. I like other stuff too.

If you're feeling sassy you can ask me a question.

 

  1. I’ve tried a few budgeting tools over the past month but I’ve ended up with (actually, going back to) Mint.com. I just don’t have the time or energy to update an actual register so the fact that Mint syncs with all my accounts makes it the winner.

    However, the way budgets and categories function drives me nuts. For instance there is a major category Food & Dining and sub categories such as Alcohol & Bars, Restaurants, and Groceries. The problem arises when I want to create a combined budget for Alcohol & Bars and Restaurants, but not Groceries, so I can’t use the major Food & Dining category.

    This makes it so I have to create separate budgets for all three sub-categories. I want a specific budget for eating out, but I don’t really care if I blow that whole budget on cosmos or dining out, so it’s irritating to have to split them up. One solution, I suppose, would be just to ignore the Alcohol & Bars sub-category and put everything under Restaurants, or just create a separate Eating Out sub-category, but that just adds a layer of unneeded complexity to a product that nearly “just works.”

    This was the original issue that drove me from Mint six months ago, it probably won’t sway my decision this time, but compound categories seem like a pre-release feature to me, not something that necessitates complaining with a maturing platform.