If you have an existing debt such as a car loan or credit card debt that you wish to enter into your plan, you can calculate those annual payments on the side and enter them as a series of annual special expenses (typically in nominal dollars). Special Expenses are part of the Household group of inputs.
If you do not represent these loan payments as Special Expenses, the annual payments will need to be paid from your discretionary spending. So if the payments are typical and ongoing (for some, a car loan payment or lease is just a normal part of discretionary spending) then you can leave such payments as discretionary.
But if you are paying off a school loan or credit card debt and don't expect this to be a recurring part of your discretionary spending in the future, you should set it up as a series of annual special expenses.
If you have a future expense that you wish to enter into your plan--say a home remodel project--you have a couple of options.
- If you simply enter it as a future special expense, the program will save in your regular assets so that this expense is paid for when the year of the expense arrives.
- If you are going to borrow, say $30,000, for this project, you can enter a special receipt of $30,000 in the year you will borrow, but also a corresponding special expense of $30,000 in the year you plan to spend this money (or leave both out if you like since they cancel each other out, but it might be helpful to record such details as a reminder). Either way, you should represent the repayment of the loan as a series of (nominal) annual special expenses based on your loan repayment schedule.
The first option above means that you save up and pay cash for the expense. The second option represents borrowing for this future expense.