YNABJ - Everyone needs one! - The Something Awful Forums

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > YNABJ - Everyone needs one!

Defenestration: Aug 10, 2006; "It wasn't my fault that my first unconscious thought turned out to be-"
"Jesus, kid, what?"
"That something smelled delicious!"; Grimey Drawer

Zilkin posted:

Pretty happy with myself. Used YNAB for two months now, and definitely still learning how to best to do things, but I should already have all my August expenses covered. So I guess I can start living on last month's income now!

Good job! Now you can afford to buy yourself the traditional MeUndies

# ? Jul 26, 2015 15:52

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 14, 2024 04:52

George H.W. Cunt: Oct 6, 2010

My referrals have run dry so this is excellent news

# ? Jul 26, 2015 16:21

Moneyball: Jul 11, 2005; It's a problem you think we need to explain ourselves.

I'm always looking for more ways to ~~over-complicate~~ better monitor and plan my finances, and finally after buying YNAB in early 2014, I've managed to stick with it since April. My expenses are way down for various reasons, so I don't have to end up abandoning plans and starting over. Having a credit card has helped a lot, but that's unrelated to my question.

When accounting for the interest on my two loans (car and student loan), what I've been doing is just recording a transfer of the entire payment from my bank account to the off budget loan account, and then at the beginning of every month, making a manual adjustment to bring it to the current balance. Though I might start doing that less frequently.

That method is pretty straightforward and when all is said and done the money is going to be paid off whether classified as principal or interest, but it won't make the interest paid show up as an expense in reports, which I think would be a big motivator to pay everything off ASAP. If I really want to, I can go look up how much interest I've paid, but it won't be staring me in the face whenever I open up YNAB.

The other method, I think, is recording a transfer for the principal, and an expense in a category (Interest Paid?) which will accomplish everything above, but will be something I can track.

Which is the preferred SA method?

# ? Jul 28, 2015 05:24

Dwight Eisenhower: Jan 24, 2006; Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.

Moneyball posted:

I'm always looking for more ways to ~~over-complicate~~ better monitor and plan my finances, and finally after buying YNAB in early 2014, I've managed to stick with it since April. My expenses are way down for various reasons, so I don't have to end up abandoning plans and starting over. Having a credit card has helped a lot, but that's unrelated to my question.

When accounting for the interest on my two loans (car and student loan), what I've been doing is just recording a transfer of the entire payment from my bank account to the off budget loan account, and then at the beginning of every month, making a manual adjustment to bring it to the current balance. Though I might start doing that less frequently.

That method is pretty straightforward and when all is said and done the money is going to be paid off whether classified as principal or interest, but it won't make the interest paid show up as an expense in reports, which I think would be a big motivator to pay everything off ASAP. If I really want to, I can go look up how much interest I've paid, but it won't be staring me in the face whenever I open up YNAB.

The other method, I think, is recording a transfer for the principal, and an expense in a category (Interest Paid?) which will accomplish everything above, but will be something I can track.

Which is the preferred SA method?

I do the latter, except I don't break out interest vs. principal as different budget items. I have a Mortgage budget item, and a Mortgage Principal account. When I make a payment, I split the payment so the principal portion is a transfer to the Mortgage Principal account, and the rest is just an expense. The Mortgage Principal account is off budget, so both the transfer and the non-principal portion of the payment need categorization. I budget both under 'Mortgage', but if you're fine with adjusting principal / interest balance then you could have different categories and really track what you're spending where.

# ? Jul 28, 2015 14:21

100 HOGS AGREE: Oct 13, 2007; Grimey Drawer

I do the former. I just reconcile every month on the last day to account for interest on my student loan and changes in my 401k.

So, I've been using YNAB for two years now and well:

I attribute much of this to this dumb software.

# ? Jul 28, 2015 18:22

myron cope: Apr 21, 2009

I'm going to make a fresh start. I have too many accounts that don't quite reconcile right (off by a few cents or a dollar or so) and I want to move my "cash" account off budget. My wife is a waitress and brings in a lot of cash, which we budget, but then it ends up getting spent and not always tracked. So instead of fixing that I'm just going to budget cash when it gets deposited to our checking account.

# ? Jul 28, 2015 18:51

Shadowhand00: Jan 23, 2006; Golden Bear is ever watching; day by day he prowls, and when he hears the tread of lowly Stanfurd red,from his Lair he fiercely growls.; Toilet Rascal

100 HOGS AGREE posted:

I do the former. I just reconcile every month on the last day to account for interest on my student loan and changes in my 401k.

So, I've been using YNAB for two years now and well:

I attribute much of this to this dumb software.

Congratulations!

# ? Jul 28, 2015 19:18

baby puzzle: Jun 3, 2011; I'll Sequence your Storm.

Once again, I am more than a month behind on entering transactions. I am thinking about entering items as I spend, but what do you do when you miss something? What do I do with my bills that pay automatically? I have no idea when this poo poo happens. My fear is that when I go to reconcile I will be way off because I will have missed a lot of stuff, and I will have no hope of finding the missing transactions.

# ? Jul 29, 2015 21:37

Knyteguy: Jul 6, 2005; YES to love
NO to shirts; Toilet Rascal

baby puzzle posted:

Once again, I am more than a month behind on entering transactions. I am thinking about entering items as I spend, but what do you do when you miss something? What do I do with my bills that pay automatically? I have no idea when this poo poo happens. My fear is that when I go to reconcile I will be way off because I will have missed a lot of stuff, and I will have no hope of finding the missing transactions.

I export a Quicken formatted file directly from my bank, and import it into YNAB. I don't have a device to enter transactions on the fly, so this works pretty well for me. It makes it a easy to reconcile too.

# ? Jul 29, 2015 21:39

gariig: Dec 31, 2004; Beaten into submission by my fiance; Pillbug

baby puzzle posted:

Once again, I am more than a month behind on entering transactions. I am thinking about entering items as I spend, but what do you do when you miss something? What do I do with my bills that pay automatically? I have no idea when this poo poo happens. My fear is that when I go to reconcile I will be way off because I will have missed a lot of stuff, and I will have no hope of finding the missing transactions.

If you have an Android or iOS device there's a YNAB client but requires Dropbox to synchronize. I actually use Mint to pull everything and I do a "make sure everything is inputted" against that. I do that because my wife and I both have accounts and this way I get one place to do inputs. When I've verified transactions I tag the entries in Mint with YNAB. I use the following Mint URL to see what I haven't seen:

https://wwws.mint.com/transaction.event#location:{"query":"-YNAB"}

Just mark all of your old transaction with the tag YNAB to use that query.

I use my CC or bank website to do reconciliation. I generally use Mint 1-2 a week to do inputs and do a reconciliation every 1-2 weeks.

# ? Jul 29, 2015 22:14

ilkhan: Oct 7, 2004; I LOVE Musk and his pro-first-amendment ways. X is the future.

I enter as I go on mobile device, with scheduled/repeating transactions for bills. When I pay I hit "enter now" and edit the amount as needed. If I'm out with friends I'll enter a penny transaction while in line, and just edit the amount later when its on the webpage.
But I also get annoyed if I have ~~more than 2~~any unreconciled transactions, so I'm a little OCD about it.

# ? Jul 29, 2015 22:50

Sockser: Jun 28, 2007; This world only remembers the results!

Something that's helped me stay on top of transactions is just always rounding up so if I grab some fast food I can just remember '$9.00' and enter it when I get in my car vs saying 'poo poo was it $8.25 or $8.45?!' And the. Deciding to wait until it showed up online and then forgetting.

At the end of the month I take the reconciliation difference straight into savings. Usually works out to like $35-$40.

# ? Jul 29, 2015 23:38

SimpleCoax: Aug 7, 2003; TV is the thing this year.; Hair Elf

I enter as I go on my phone most of the time. It gets to be a habit. I reconcile at least every weekend and only have like 10 transactions each week to verify and I miss a lot but I just type them in at that point. I have checking, cash, and a credit card and off budget savings. I enter automatic payments as I see them show up each week. I get bored with how simple my stuff is to reconcile and just try to gain new perspectives with reports.

# ? Jul 30, 2015 02:50

Guy Axlerod: Dec 29, 2008

I enter my auto-payments as soon as I know about them. When I get my electric bill, for example, I enter a future-dated transaction for the amount and date listed on the bill. I leave it uncleared until they actually take it out. For my car payment and rent, which have a fixed day and amount, I use a scheduled transaction.

# ? Jul 30, 2015 12:48

Sockser: Jun 28, 2007; This world only remembers the results!

Question:
I got a new job and with it I got a neat little "sign on" bonus that needs to be repaid if I leave the company in under a time threshold.

So basically let's say I've got $1000 that I want to pretend doesn't exist. What's the best way to do this? I created a budget item for it so its disappeared from my budget but it's still in my account and affecting my net worth and reconciliations.

I've considered putting it in a separate brand new savings account until I hit that time threshold but I'm not sure what the best course of action is.

Help.

# ? Jul 30, 2015 16:19

Gothmog1065: May 14, 2009

Sockser posted:

Question:
I got a new job and with it I got a neat little "sign on" bonus that needs to be repaid if I leave the company in under a time threshold.

So basically let's say I've got $1000 that I want to pretend doesn't exist. What's the best way to do this? I created a budget item for it so its disappeared from my budget but it's still in my account and affecting my net worth and reconciliations.

I've considered putting it in a separate brand new savings account until I hit that time threshold but I'm not sure what the best course of action is.

Help.

How good are you at not actually looking at your checking balance, and looking at your budget?

IF you're really good at it, just add the money, create a budget category called "DON'T TOUCH THIS" and hide it. When the time comes, unhide it, zero it out and rebudget it.

If you're bad and can't keep your mitts off your checking account, then create another account, withdraw it and put it in a jar (Don't do this), mattress or whatever.

OR just spend it and hope you stay at this job.

# ? Jul 30, 2015 16:40

Sockser: Jun 28, 2007; This world only remembers the results!

I look at my balance simply because it's nice to see my net worth slowly get less negative as my student loans go away.

Currently have a hidden "DONT TOUCH THIS" category but eeeeh I don't want to remember this money exists.

# ? Jul 30, 2015 17:10

signalnoise: Mar 7, 2008; i was told my old av was distracting

What information do you need from me for you to tell me how to set up all my YNAB accounts? This poo poo confusing

# ? Aug 1, 2015 14:27

IAmKale: Jun 7, 2007; やらないか; Fun Shoe

signalnoise posted:

What information do you need from me for you to tell me how to set up all my YNAB accounts? This poo poo confusing

Specific dollar amounts aren't required. What does come in handy when setting up new accounts is knowing what the account is. A credit card? A savings account? A checking account? A mutual fund? When you select "Add An Account" YNAB will present a list of different accounts under the Type dropdown - choose the one that best represents what the account is, and YNAB will determine whether it should be on-budget or off-budget.

When an account is "On-Budget", any money in that account MUST be allocated into your categories as part of the "Give every dollar a job" Rule One of the YNAB methodology. When an account is "Off-Budget", the account is still represented in YNAB, but none of that money affects your budgeting until you transfer some of it into an "On-Budget" account.

When money comes in to an "On-Budget" account, you'll see it represented in the Available to Budget header of a month's budget, on the Budget section:

* screenshot doctored a bit for practical purposes

That "Available to Budget" is the total number of dollars you need to "budget" into whatever categories you create. Budget everything until Available to Budget is zero, or since it's the first of the month and it sounds like you're just starting with YNAB then go ahead and budget for the entire month's needs. Your Available to Budget will show red until all of August's pay comes in to (hopefully) zero it out.

Start there and then come back whenever you have questions. Good luck

And now it's my turn for a question. It's the first of the month, which means it's time to address some overspending. How do you guys handle it? Do you siphon out excess from the categories that have them, then apply it to the categories you might have overspent? Or do you leave it all and make adjustments in the current month's budget until Overbudgeted is back to $0?

# ? Aug 1, 2015 16:28

Sockser: Jun 28, 2007; This world only remembers the results!

Karthe posted:

And now it's my turn for a question. It's the first of the month, which means it's time to address some overspending. How do you guys handle it? Do you siphon out excess from the categories that have them, then apply it to the categories you might have overspent?

I like to do this. The iPad app actually does it automatically, which I wish was a feature in the desktop app.

Although I've become a bit more accepting of the fact that it's going to happen, so I just have a MASTER FOOD CATEGORY that gets $500 budgeted to it for the month, and then I subtract dollars from it and put into Fast Food/Restaurants/Groceries as it happens.

Also for August I've just gone and added a straight up "FLEX" category and given it $200 to subtract from when I inevitably go over-budget on something. We'll see how that goes.

# ? Aug 1, 2015 16:54

IAmKale: Jun 7, 2007; やらないか; Fun Shoe

Sockser posted:

I like to do this. The iPad app actually does it automatically, which I wish was a feature in the desktop app.

I've been doing this but wasn't sure if it was against the YNAB methodology. Screw it, though - it works better for me so I'll continue to do this every first of the month.

# ? Aug 1, 2015 16:55

Fezziwig: Jun 7, 2011

Karthe posted:

And now it's my turn for a question. It's the first of the month, which means it's time to address some overspending. How do you guys handle it? Do you siphon out excess from the categories that have them, then apply it to the categories you might have overspent? Or do you leave it all and make adjustments in the current month's budget until Overbudgeted is back to $0?

I really think this just comes down to a preference/discipline thing. Either is fine, it's just a matter if you're OK siphoning off of certain categories to make up for your overages.

I prefer to just carry the negative balance over - this keeps me honest, so if I spend too much "fun money" this month, next month I will have less to play with so I stay on track with my savings goals.

# ? Aug 1, 2015 17:06

mrmcd: Feb 22, 2003; Pictured: The only good cop (a fictional one).

I actually like to rebalance budget categories mid month of I overspend. That way if I, say, go crazy spending on bars and eating out one month I know I have to dial back spending on other fun things to compensate.

Otherwise you can just let YNAB roll it forward to the next month by subtracting from that category or the overall budgeting amount available. (This behavior is toggled by clicking on the overspend amount in the budgeting table.)

# ? Aug 1, 2015 17:09

Randler: Jan 3, 2013; ACER ET VEHEMENS BONAVIS

I have a category for Traveling and Transportation, where I budget for my regular traveling expenses and which I adjust if I have to go somewhere quickly.

Now I have to go to a thing for work and while I'll be reimbursed for any travel expenses, I'll have to pay them out of pocket first. Should I readjust my Traveling category accordingly or just overspent because the reimbursement will cancel it out? (The latter implies possibly overbudgeting for August, since reimbursement might only come in in September.)

# ? Aug 3, 2015 19:35

Guy Axlerod: Dec 29, 2008

I have a category specifically for stuff I'm getting reimbursed for. I budget $0, and let the 'overspend' carry over month-to-month.

# ? Aug 3, 2015 19:43

mrmcd: Feb 22, 2003; Pictured: The only good cop (a fictional one).

Randler posted:

I have a category for Traveling and Transportation, where I budget for my regular traveling expenses and which I adjust if I have to go somewhere quickly.

Now I have to go to a thing for work and while I'll be reimbursed for any travel expenses, I'll have to pay them out of pocket first. Should I readjust my Traveling category accordingly or just overspent because the reimbursement will cancel it out? (The latter implies possibly overbudgeting for August, since reimbursement might only come in in September.)

If you have enough cash on hand where overspending isn't going to empty your bank account, then just overspend and carry the negative balance forward. When you get reimbursed mark that portion as Travel instead of income and it will balance out eventually. Also consider making a separate budget category just for reimbursable expenses especially if this is something you're going to do regularly.

If you don't have the cash on hand, take money out of another budget to cover it, then when you're reimbursed give it back to whatever categories you borrowed it from. This way you won't risk overdrafting your bank account.

# ? Aug 3, 2015 19:44

gariig: Dec 31, 2004; Beaten into submission by my fiance; Pillbug

Randler posted:

I have a category for Traveling and Transportation, where I budget for my regular traveling expenses and which I adjust if I have to go somewhere quickly.

Now I have to go to a thing for work and while I'll be reimbursed for any travel expenses, I'll have to pay them out of pocket first. Should I readjust my Traveling category accordingly or just overspent because the reimbursement will cancel it out? (The latter implies possibly overbudgeting for August, since reimbursement might only come in in September.)

I think thread consensus is to put work expenses into it's own category and don't budget for this. That way you can see that you still need to be reimbursed. When you get your reimbursement put that towards the work expenses which should zero out. You are basically using your emergency fund to pay for your travel expenses.

EDIT: Super beaten

# ? Aug 3, 2015 19:44

Randler: Jan 3, 2013; ACER ET VEHEMENS BONAVIS

Thanks, that sounds like a good idea. I totally forgot that you could carry negative category balances forward.

# ? Aug 3, 2015 20:00

SimpleCoax: Aug 7, 2003; TV is the thing this year.; Hair Elf

Karthe posted:

And now it's my turn for a question. It's the first of the month, which means it's time to address some overspending. How do you guys handle it? Do you siphon out excess from the categories that have them, then apply it to the categories you might have overspent? Or do you leave it all and make adjustments in the current month's budget until Overbudgeted is back to $0?

I refactor my budget numbers every week and just roll with it. I balance everything to zero at the end of the month and then I pick up any slack with a single savings category to get the big green number to zero. If I underspent, which I basically always should, anything left over is a transfer to savings. If I overspent, I transfer from savings. Then everything is zero. I used to carry over when I paid car insurance every six months though. This means I use YNAB mostly to just be aware of my spending, but I find I have a tendency to want to maximize that final savings sum each month.

# ? Aug 5, 2015 07:12

Zilkin: Jan 9, 2009

How those of you that are all tracking your investments with YNAB deal with the fact the stock/etc. values constantly change?

# ? Aug 28, 2015 04:54

crimedog: Apr 1, 2008; Yo, dog.
You dead, dog.

Zilkin posted:

How those of you that are all tracking your investments with YNAB deal with the fact the stock/etc. values constantly change?

My off budget accounts are mostly reconcile auto-adjust only, so I just enter the value of the accounts on the last day of the month.

# ? Aug 28, 2015 05:36

SpaceCadetBob: Dec 27, 2012

Just started using this program this week and it looks like it will totally rock, once I get a hang of it at least. My big question today is; I'm trying to account for my yearly big bills like insurances and property taxes. My wife and I have decided we will open a separate savings account and dump in the monthly budgeted amounts for the above into it. How do I apply that to the budget screen in YNAB? Do I leave the outflow fields empty each month and allow the balances to build? I think this is right because then I could compare the category's total balance to my savings account balance on a monthly basis. However I have this annoying urge to fill in the fields to zero everything out so I just wanted to make sure I'm following the right procedure.

# ? Aug 29, 2015 21:44

spincube: Jan 31, 2006; I spent so I could say that I finally figured out what this god damned cube is doing. Get well Lowtax.; Grimey Drawer

SpaceCadetBob posted:

Just started using this program this week and it looks like it will totally rock, once I get a hang of it at least. My big question today is; I'm trying to account for my yearly big bills like insurances and property taxes. My wife and I have decided we will open a separate savings account and dump in the monthly budgeted amounts for the above into it. How do I apply that to the budget screen in YNAB? Do I leave the outflow fields empty each month and allow the balances to build? I think this is right because then I could compare the category's total balance to my savings account balance on a monthly basis. However I have this annoying urge to fill in the fields to zero everything out so I just wanted to make sure I'm following the right procedure.

This is what I'd do:

Add the new bills-only account to YNAB, and make it an on-budget account (as I'd be spending from it)
Set up a 'home insurance (250 beans)' category and add 50 beans to that category
Set up a 'property tax (175 beans)' category and add 25 beans to that category
Open a web browser, fire up my online banking and transfer 75 beans from my regular everyday account to the new bills account
Back to YNAB, record the transfer from my regular account to the bills account

Then, every month, I'd keep adding beans to each category as needed, and recording the underlying account-to-account transfers as I go. By the time the annual bills roll around and become due, the money will be there in each bill's individual category, and the cash in the bills account will be there ready and waiting to be spent - just a matter of going to the bills account in YNAB and recording how much was paid to the insurance company.

Only real 'pain point' would be checking that I was adding up the correct amount to transfer per month!

# ? Aug 29, 2015 23:02

Tayter Swift: Nov 18, 2002; Pillbug

You can put all the stuff you're going to put into the savings account into its own category. Then the total amount to transfer is shown at the top of the category.

# ? Aug 29, 2015 23:43

Garrand: Dec 28, 2012; Rhino, you did this to me!

Is there a way to stop YNAB from autosorting by the payment size? Like I buy 2 things during the day: the first one is 45 dollars and the second is 15 but it autosorts the higher bill below the lower one. I'd really like to keep things in transaction order.

# ? Aug 30, 2015 07:32

Eight Is Legend: Jan 2, 2008

Garrand posted:

Is there a way to stop YNAB from autosorting by the payment size? Like I buy 2 things during the day: the first one is 45 dollars and the second is 15 but it autosorts the higher bill below the lower one. I'd really like to keep things in transaction order.

Nope, I have the same problem.

# ? Aug 30, 2015 14:04

Slimchandi: May 13, 2005; That finger on your temple is the barrel of my raygun

I understand why YNAB wants you to simplify and reduce the number of accounts you have. Jesse often talks about having a large balance in his checking account, which includes RDFs and emergency fund.

I've always understood this was risky as if your checking details are compromised then anyone could get access to all of it. Doesn't having EFs and long term (i.e. >1yr) RDFs in a separate savings account make more sense for security purposes?

Slimchandi fucked around with this message at 13:51 on Aug 31, 2015

# ? Aug 31, 2015 13:49

100 HOGS AGREE: Oct 13, 2007; Grimey Drawer

Yeah, I get my direct deposit into my checking account and I just transfer most of it once a month into savings minus what I need for my credit card spending and rent that I pay in cash every month. I just draw my one remaining student loan payment straight out of the savings account.

# ? Aug 31, 2015 17:22

SpaceCadetBob: Dec 27, 2012

Slimchandi posted:

I understand why YNAB wants you to simplify and reduce the number of accounts you have. Jesse often talks about having a large balance in his checking account, which includes RDFs and emergency fund.

I've always understood this was risky as if your checking details are compromised then anyone could get access to all of it. Doesn't having EFs and long term (i.e. >1yr) RDFs in a separate savings account make more sense for security purposes?

As someone who watched an account with $8K disappear overnight when my wife's ATM card info was stolen, yes. Personally we've decided keep 1 month's worth of our 6 month emergency fund in a separate savings account at our bank, and the rest in a separate bank all together using an online bank like Ally. Which can quickly transfer money back to our checking if we need.

# ? Aug 31, 2015 19:10

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 14, 2024 04:52

Underwear: May 13, 2006

Slimchandi posted:

I've always understood this was risky as if your checking details are compromised then anyone could get access to all of it. Doesn't having EFs and long term (i.e. >1yr) RDFs in a separate savings account make more sense for security purposes?

Does your bank not protect against fraud / unauthorized use? I may be incorrect but I've always assumed fraudulent chequing transactions could be disputed and reversed like with a credit card.

# ? Aug 31, 2015 19:15

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > YNABJ - Everyone needs one!

«‹›100 »