cannot make a static reference to the non-static field

Question

I apologize ahead of time if this code isn't formatted correctly, trying to paste instead of retyping each line. If it isn't right, can someone tell me an easy way to paste multiple lines of code at once?

My main question is that I keep getting an error message stating: Cannot make a static reference to the non-static field balance.

I have tried making the methods static, with no result, and making the main method non-static by removing "static" from the header, but then I get the message: java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: main Exception in thread "main"

Does anyone have any ideas? Any help is appreciated.

public class Account {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Account account = new Account(1122, 20000, 4.5);

        account.withdraw(balance, 2500);
        account.deposit(balance, 3000);
        System.out.println("Balance is " + account.getBalance());
        System.out.println("Monthly interest is " + (account.getAnnualInterestRate()/12));
        System.out.println("The account was created " + account.getDateCreated());
    }

    private int id = 0;
    private double balance = 0;
    private double annualInterestRate = 0;
    public java.util.Date dateCreated;

    public Account() {
    }

    public Account(int id, double balance, double annualInterestRate) {
        this.id = id;
        this.balance = balance;
        this.annualInterestRate = annualInterestRate;
    }

    public void setId(int i) {
        id = i;
    }

    public int getID() {
        return id;
    }

    public void setBalance(double b){
        balance = b;
    }

    public double getBalance() {
        return balance;
    }

    public double getAnnualInterestRate() {
        return annualInterestRate;
    }

    public void setAnnualInterestRate(double interest) {
        annualInterestRate = interest;
    }

    public java.util.Date getDateCreated() {
        return this.dateCreated;
    }

    public void setDateCreated(java.util.Date dateCreated) {
        this.dateCreated = dateCreated;
    }

    public static double withdraw(double balance, double withdrawAmount) {
        double newBalance = balance - withdrawAmount;
        return newBalance;
    }

    public static double deposit(double balance, double depositAmount) {
        double newBalance = balance + depositAmount;
        return newBalance;
    }   
}

Answer 1

main is a static method. It cannot refer to balance, which is an attribute (non-static variable). balance has meaning only when it is referred through an object reference (such as myAccount.balance or yourAccount.balance). But it doesn't have any meaning when it is referred through class (such as Account.balance (whose balance is that?))

I made some changes to your code so that it compiles.

public static void main(String[] args) {
    Account account = new Account(1122, 20000, 4.5);
    account.withdraw(2500);
    account.deposit(3000);

and:

public void withdraw(double withdrawAmount) {
    balance -= withdrawAmount;
}

public void deposit(double depositAmount) {
    balance += depositAmount;
}