Depreciation and Appreciation

When buying assets, such as vehicles, the price of the asset may depreciate over time. Although it's not strictly necessary to put this into Microsoft money, you may want to avoid sharp dips in your 'net worth' by recording the asset and then writing off the value over time.

In FAQ Article 474, I mention the use of appreciation/dereciation and how to record it in the program. In the following article, it can be used as a mechanism of writing off the value of an asset bought for cash.

Of course, in a non-business scenario, choosing a period to write off an asset is very subjective. When I do it, I typically do it by writing off a nominal amount each month, and then reducing this nominal amount each year. It the asset ever hits a zero value, then I stop depreciating it.

With house price appreciation, then I typically use a fixed amount each quarter. However I review the asset value each year to make sure I haven't got it totally wrong. Recently having my house on the market has enabled me to put in a very accurate valuation (accurate to the point I knew how much someone was willing to pay for it).

Tracking a house move - part 2

In my previous blog post entitled tracking a house move, I mentioned that I was going to write some articles on how I track this in Microsoft Money.

Unfortunately, circumstances do change, and I'm not now going to be moving house for a little while, so these articles will need to go on hold until we do actually move (could be a couple of years(!)).

Won't go into details, but sorry to disappoint.

Now that a house move is not looming, maybe I'll find some more time to put up new information on http://moneymvps.org and this website.

Tracking a house move

A couple of months back, I put in some articles about Buying and selling houses with Microsoft Money. At the time, it seemed to be a good idea, as it was something on my list of things to write.

Now, two months later, I am going to be going through the process, having agreed on a sale of my house today. This gave me an idea of tracking how I do it in Microsoft Money through a series of articles on this blog.

Once I start altering my Microsoft Money file with transactions, I'll try to post information and screen shots here showing the process as it happens.

Hope you'll find it useful

Glyn