# Staggering Large Purchases **URL:** \ **Category:** Feedback & Ideas\ **Created:** [May 5, 2019, 9:05am UTC](https://community.emma-app.com/t/staggering-large-purchases/327 "2019-05-05T09:05:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Logan09](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/community.emma-app.com/logan09/32/217_2.png) [@Logan09](https://community.emma-app.com/u/Logan09)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2019, 9:05am UTC](https://community.emma-app.com/t/staggering-large-purchases/327/1 "2019-05-05T09:05:44Z")
One of my biggest issues with Emma, is how large expenses mess up the monthly budgeting. E.g. Saving up and splurging on a new phone, paying your car insurance annually, etc. Any large expense can put you into a negative amount for that month’s budget/analytics, when in reality that expense has actually been saved for over several months. It makes it hard to make sense of the rest of your budgetting for the month. I know I could ‘exclude’ these transactions, but that doesn’t feel the right solution either, as they are expenses. Additionally, if/when Emma release a year view in analytics, I’d like to see these transactions here, as they are part of my spending. I’m not sure what the ideal solution is, but I know that someone on the community suggested having an option to offset a transaction across the last year (e.g. £1200 purchase, gets split into 12 £100 expenses over last year). Something like this would be great. What do people think? ---
**Author:** ![o99](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/community.emma-app.com/o99/32/2132_2.png) [@o99](https://community.emma-app.com/u/o99)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2019, 10:51am UTC](https://community.emma-app.com/t/staggering-large-purchases/327/2 "2019-05-05T10:51:44Z")
I don’t know what the solution is, but I agree a solution to this issue would be welcome The way I sort of get around it - which is independent of Emma - is to put my large/annual purchases (e.g. annual insurance payment, car service, etc) on a long term 0% credit card to spread the cost of these expenses over several months at 0% rate . I exclude all purchases I make on that credit card from Emma analytics, but don’t exclude the monthly repayments I make to the credit card. However the problem with this is my monthly repayments to the credit card can only be a single category. ---
**Author:** ![edoardomoreni](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/community.emma-app.com/edoardomoreni/32/9_2.png) [@edoardomoreni](https://community.emma-app.com/u/edoardomoreni)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2019, 10:56am UTC](https://community.emma-app.com/t/staggering-large-purchases/327/3 "2019-05-05T10:56:44Z")
Don’t make large purchases? 🤣 ---
**Author:** ![Logan09](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/community.emma-app.com/logan09/32/217_2.png) [@Logan09](https://community.emma-app.com/u/Logan09)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2019, 10:59am UTC](https://community.emma-app.com/t/staggering-large-purchases/327/4 "2019-05-05T10:59:05Z")
> [@edoardomoreni](#): > > Don’t make large purchases? 🤣 So, it’s a feature to help prevent large expenses? 😉😂 ---
**Author:** ![edoardomoreni](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/community.emma-app.com/edoardomoreni/32/9_2.png) [@edoardomoreni](https://community.emma-app.com/u/edoardomoreni)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2019, 11:00am UTC](https://community.emma-app.com/t/staggering-large-purchases/327/5 "2019-05-05T11:00:02Z")
ahahaha I am not sure. ahha I think unless the large purchase is a contract, I don’t see a quick solution; but would be interesting to know what others think. ---
**Author:** ![edoardomoreni](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/community.emma-app.com/edoardomoreni/32/9_2.png) [@edoardomoreni](https://community.emma-app.com/u/edoardomoreni)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2019, 11:01am UTC](https://community.emma-app.com/t/staggering-large-purchases/327/6 "2019-05-05T11:01:22Z")
Like a yearly budget works for 1 year contracts; but again, if I buy a £2k sofa, I just need to realise I have spent that £2k and live with it. 🤣 ---
**Author:** ![edoardomoreni](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/community.emma-app.com/edoardomoreni/32/9_2.png) [@edoardomoreni](https://community.emma-app.com/u/edoardomoreni)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2019, 11:11am UTC](https://community.emma-app.com/t/staggering-large-purchases/327/7 "2019-05-05T11:11:36Z")
> [@o99](#): > > The way I sort of get around it - which is independent of Emma - is to put my large/annual purchases (e.g. annual insurance payment, car service, etc) on a long term 0% credit card to spread the cost of these expenses over several months at 0% rate . I exclude all purchases I make on that credit card from Emma analytics, but don’t exclude the monthly repayments I make to the credit card. However the problem with this is my monthly repayments to the credit card can only be a single category. This is impressive. 😮 ---
**Author:** ![Logan09](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/community.emma-app.com/logan09/32/217_2.png) [@Logan09](https://community.emma-app.com/u/Logan09)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2019, 7:34pm UTC](https://community.emma-app.com/t/staggering-large-purchases/327/8 "2019-05-16T19:34:26Z")
How about a toggle in the transaction to ‘exclude from payday/current month’. Then you could have the transaction properly categorised, it just wouldn’t be counted in the payday ‘amount to spend’, so wouldn’t affect budgeting for that month? ---
**Author:** ![trofushka](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/community.emma-app.com/trofushka/32/345_2.png) [@trofushka](https://community.emma-app.com/u/trofushka)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2019, 9:26pm UTC](https://community.emma-app.com/t/staggering-large-purchases/327/9 "2019-05-16T21:26:27Z")
Can you add a flag on a transaction that would mean ‘do not count this transaction towards monthly budget’. So it’ll still be there, but it won’t mess up your ‘left to spend’ amount. ---
**Author:** ![edoardomoreni](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/community.emma-app.com/edoardomoreni/32/9_2.png) [@edoardomoreni](https://community.emma-app.com/u/edoardomoreni)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2019, 8:24am UTC](https://community.emma-app.com/t/staggering-large-purchases/327/10 "2019-05-17T08:24:48Z")
> [@Logan09](#): > > How about a toggle in the transaction to ‘exclude from payday/current month’. Don’t we have this already? ---
**Author:** ![edoardomoreni](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/community.emma-app.com/edoardomoreni/32/9_2.png) [@edoardomoreni](https://community.emma-app.com/u/edoardomoreni)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2019, 8:25am UTC](https://community.emma-app.com/t/staggering-large-purchases/327/11 "2019-05-17T08:25:25Z")
The excluded category, which is also present as a toggle, aims at excluding stuff from analytics; so it should fit this use case really well. ---
**Author:** ![Logan09](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/community.emma-app.com/logan09/32/217_2.png) [@Logan09](https://community.emma-app.com/u/Logan09)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2019, 9:22am UTC](https://community.emma-app.com/t/staggering-large-purchases/327/12 "2019-05-17T09:22:00Z")
I don’t want to exclude these one-off purchases completely. If for example, you provide a year view for analytics I’d like to see these transactions there. The issue is primarily that I don’t want to see it affecting my left to spend amount for that month. E.g. this month I bought a new iPhone which I’d been saving for over the last year. With £800 coming out in one month, it meant my left to spend was a minus figure, which makes it hard to budget from 😂 My current solution is that I’ve excluded it, then made a reminder to re-categorise it at the end of the month. Not ideal. I don’t want to exclude it completely, and pretend I’ve not spent the money, but equally I don’t want it to affect my budgeting. ---
**Author:** ![dn1982](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f17d59/32.png) [@dn1982](https://community.emma-app.com/u/dn1982)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2019, 1:36pm UTC](https://community.emma-app.com/t/staggering-large-purchases/327/13 "2019-06-04T13:36:03Z")
The total budget feature helps with this. In your phone example, you can increase the total budget to £800 over what you originally budgeted so that your remaining to spend figures are not skewed. ---
**Author:** ![Logan09](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/community.emma-app.com/logan09/32/217_2.png) [@Logan09](https://community.emma-app.com/u/Logan09)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2019, 2:06pm UTC](https://community.emma-app.com/t/staggering-large-purchases/327/14 "2019-06-04T14:06:07Z")
Yes, you could do that, but it’s similar to my workaround of excluding them temporarily. If I forgot to change the total budget back before the next month, I might think I’ve got more money available than I actually have in my budget. A button to “exclude from this months budget” and would be more elegant, and not require me to remember to reset something at the end of the month.