Budget Planner Help Index
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Planner Events

An event in Budget Planner represents a significant change in your financial situation at a specific point in time. This could be a major purchase, a change in income, a change in saving habits, etc. You can set up as many events as you like. The graph will display the cumulative total money in your plan after taking into account all of the events that fall within it's time period.

The event box is on the right side of the planner. It contains the event starting date, starting amount, amount added monthly, length of the event in months, interest rate, inflation rate, and description of the event.

How To: Create an event
  1. Click the New button.
    • A new event with the date set to today will show up in the graph.
    • The new event will be selected (see below for more about selected events).
  2. Change the date, amount, interest rate, inflation rate, and description fields as desired.

Selected Event

Only one event can be selected at a time. The selected event is indicated with a black marker in the graph. The selected event information is shown in the event box and can be modified. To modify an event's information, select the event then change any field.

How To: Select an event
  • Click any event symbol in the graph to select that event.
  • Use the arrows in the event box to move between events. Click the left arrow to move to a previous event (earlier in time), or click the right arrow to move to the next event (later in time).

To remove an event, select it then click the Remove button.

Viewing Events

Events are indicated in the graph with the event symbol. You can click the symbol to show the event information in the event box. Use the Previous and Next arrows to navigate between events.

Click the List button to get a list of all events defined in the plan. Selecting an event in the list will place the events information in the event box and make it the current event.

Event Interest

For both the Amount and Monthly fields, interest is compounded monthly.

Example: You have $1000 and set an interest rate of 5%. For the first month $1000 is multiplied by 1/12 of 5% and the result is added to the $1000 which equals $1004.17. For the second month $1004.17 is multiplied by 1/12 of 5% and the result is added to the $1004.17 which equals $1008.35. etc.

Event Inflation

For both the Amount and Monthly fields, inflation is computed in the following manner. The starting date of the plan is subtracted from the date of the event to determine the number of years. The inflation is then applied to each year.

Example: The plan starts on December 2, 2002 and you have an event on October 5, 2005 with an amount of $1000.00 and an inflation rate of 3%. The number of years until the event in this case is 2 (full years only) so $1000 would be multiplied by 3% and added to the $1000.00 for a total of $1003.00. For the second year, $1003 would be multiplied by 3% and added to $1003 for a total of $1006.03. If there was a monthly amount the inflation would also be applied for each year in a similar manner.