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Sure. If you never carry any card debt it makes no difference. But since YNAB is strongly marketed towards those who do, it would be of use to a large user base.
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# ? Dec 13, 2017 15:20 |
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# ? May 14, 2024 02:51 |
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Neither using nynab, nor ever carrying a balance on a credit card, does it do anything intelligent about the interest rates of various ccs?
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# ? Dec 13, 2017 15:22 |
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I haven't seen any interest rate info anywhere. I don't know if it would do anything fancy if you connect it to your bank, I don't.
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# ? Dec 13, 2017 15:24 |
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Can you guys help me think of a YNAB-friendly way to manage budgeting for a shared credit card? I want to get my wife and I to do all of our spending on one of the better Chase cards for the travel points. While we're both heavy users of YNAB, I can't see a sane way to manage this without juggling three separate budgets - hers, mine, and a third one for the shared spending. The best way I can think of right now is to merge our budgets into one big one, then recreate our specific categories in individual category groups. My wife enjoys keeping a separate budget, though, so that arrangement might be a hard sell.
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# ? Dec 19, 2017 19:23 |
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No, you can't have a shared budget without having a shared budget. The closest you could do would be to each assume that it's not a shared credit card; that is to say, you cover your spending, she covers her spending, and you each do all reconciliation by hand, by entering line items off of a physical bill, and matching them to your own purchases and payments. If one of you EVER misses a payment, it'll be hosed, and neither one of you will have an accurate view of what's actually owing on the card.
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# ? Dec 19, 2017 19:42 |
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Combat Pretzel posted:Unless you're paying off existing debt on the card, it doesn't really make sense. If the card is set up as regular account, it'll also subtract from the normal categories and the account goes into debt. And because you have budgeted money to begin with to the category, the money is already there to pay it off. Since the credit card account goes into debt, the net value of yours is already correct, before you pay off the card. I thought this too FWIW, but after swapping back and forth a few times I found out I somehow got into a situation where I was floating ~$10 a month on two of my cards. I haven't been able to figure out exactly how I was doing that (I just have them set to automatically pay the statement balance), best I can figure is something got screwed up when I claimed some cash rewards as statement credit? I have no idea. Switching my accounts to nYAB CC's instantly noticed it though.
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# ? Dec 22, 2017 17:48 |
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I'm unemployed at the moment and will start pulling from my savings. Do you do that transfer from savings to checking as an income even though it isnt really true income?
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# ? Jan 6, 2018 05:31 |
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If the savings account is off-budget, then yeah, it would come into the budget as an income.
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# ? Jan 6, 2018 06:11 |
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If you have both accounts in Ynab you can add a transaction for moving the money but change the Payee to your savings account so it treats it like a transfer. If you only use Ynab to disperse your checking account, then yes this would count as income to your checking account.
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# ? Jan 6, 2018 06:11 |
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Always set up credit cards as checking or cash. Too much of a headache and PITA otherwise. I understand it's TECHNICALLY more accurate with it, but it's so intuitive it causes more problems than it solves.
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# ? Jan 6, 2018 17:51 |
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I must be the only person in the world who has zero problems with credit cards. The worst that happens is occasionally after a refund, I have more in the payment category for the CC than I owe, in which case I just move it out of the category.
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# ? Jan 6, 2018 20:45 |
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George H.W. oval office posted:I'm unemployed at the moment and will start pulling from my savings. Do you do that transfer from savings to checking as an income even though it isnt really true income? Money going from an off-budget account into an on-budget account counts as income, as the money's purpose is changing from generic, figure-out-a-purpose-later SAVINGS into a more useful, directed purpose - i.e. rent money, food money, utilities money, etc.
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# ? Jan 6, 2018 21:37 |
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FateFree posted:I must be the only person in the world who has zero problems with credit cards. The worst that happens is occasionally after a refund, I have more in the payment category for the CC than I owe, in which case I just move it out of the category.
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# ? Jan 6, 2018 21:54 |
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a friend is starting YNAB for new year and she asked me if I wanted a referral for a discount. I got to be all and tell her I have 4 and will never pay another dime
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# ? Jan 7, 2018 00:26 |
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George H.W. oval office posted:I'm unemployed at the moment and will start pulling from my savings. Do you do that transfer from savings to checking as an income even though it isnt really true income? If the savings account is on budget, i.e. the bank account is listed as a 'budget account' and you have a budget category labelled 'Long Term Savings' or whatever, you just remove money from that budget category, then budget it to whatever. You should also enter a transfer from the savings account to the checking account so that the account totals all reflect reality, as well. If the savings account is off budget, i.e. it's in the 'off budget accounts' section, or YNAB just flat out doesn't know about it, you transfer the money into your checking account, list it in YNAB as 'income for month whatever' and allocate it as normal.
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# ? Jan 8, 2018 15:54 |
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Figured I'd give ynab a try since I've gotten completely fed up with Mint's marketing poo poo and crappy syncing while also realizing that it doesn't actually help me keep a budget as much as it just let's me watch in real time as I blow past all of my budgeted categories. So anyway, I have a couple of questions. First, anyone got a referral code to share? Second, is it normal to start off with a kind of huge "To be Budgeted" amount that doesn't really fit into a monthly budget? A lot of it is from savings and a "bumper" amount that keep in my checking account at all times. Should I just create "savings" and "bumper" goals to make that go away?
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# ? Jan 10, 2018 22:24 |
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Mikey Purp posted:Figured I'd give ynab a try since I've gotten completely fed up with Mint's marketing poo poo and crappy syncing while also realizing that it doesn't actually help me keep a budget as much as it just let's me watch in real time as I blow past all of my budgeted categories. Figure out what you actually want to do with that. Make an emergency fund category but just savings isn't giving your money a job.
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# ? Jan 10, 2018 22:25 |
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Mikey Purp posted:Figured I'd give ynab a try since I've gotten completely fed up with Mint's marketing poo poo and crappy syncing while also realizing that it doesn't actually help me keep a budget as much as it just let's me watch in real time as I blow past all of my budgeted categories. If you keep your savings in a discrete savings account, you can mark that account as off budget and the money there won't be available to budget. Deposits to savings will be "spending", and transfers out of savings will be "income". Otherwise, yeah, just make categories for Savings and Bumper and put the amount of money you want to have available there. If you need to dip into savings, budget negative dollars against that when you need to access savings and you'll have more available to budget. Whether you call it "Savings", "Emergency Fund" or "Rainy Day Funds" doesn't matter since they're all the same job, only one of them also delineates a common type of bank account.
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# ? Jan 10, 2018 22:29 |
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Mikey Purp posted:Second, is it normal to start off with a kind of huge "To be Budgeted" amount that doesn't really fit into a monthly budget? Yes. Mikey Purp posted:A lot of it is from savings and a "bumper" amount that keep in my checking account at all times. Should I just create "savings" and "bumper" goals to make that go away? The 'bumper' sum should probably be in some kind of 'short-term small unforeseen expenses' category that you keep at X amount of money. As for savings, what are you saving for? House, new car, emergencies, retirement, ...? Figure out what you want to do with it and assign it accordingly. And then if you want to grow any of those funds, try making it a goal to grow each one by Y each month, or whatever you strategy is. TL;DR: A generic 'savings' category isn't any good, make it more specific. ('Emergency buffer' is good though, and exactly what you should have.) Dwight Eisenhower posted:If you keep your savings in a discrete savings account, you can mark that account as off budget and the money there won't be available to budget. Deposits to savings will be "spending", and transfers out of savings will be "income". I don't like that. It's more motivating to see exactly where the money you're saving is going (house, car, trip round the world, ...) rather than some nebulous off-budget thing. uXs fucked around with this message at 22:37 on Jan 10, 2018 |
# ? Jan 10, 2018 22:32 |
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I have a master category called "Savings Goals" with a handful of sub-categories that go in to specifics. If I keep the category collapsed then I see how much I've got budgeted total for long-term goals but if I expand it then it shows more precisely how I've got it allocated. It looks like this: Savings Goals - $6500 $5000 - Emergency fund $500 - Puppy $500 - New PC $500 - Vacation I try to ensure that the true balance of my savings account matches the amount I have budgeted in my Savings Goals category. This isn't necessary and you could keep all of the money in a checking account if you want but I like it to be neat. Each time I get paid, I increase each category by $X and then do a corresponding transfer of $X from checking to savings. If I end up drawing money out of any of these categories then I do the opposite and simply subtract from the budget line so that it goes back into To Be Budgeted and can be re-assigned elsewhere. Teeter fucked around with this message at 23:21 on Jan 10, 2018 |
# ? Jan 10, 2018 23:06 |
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Cool, thanks for the tips everyone. Here's another question that just came up - what do you do about specialized accounts like HSA accounts? Not every dollar in there needs to have a "job" per se, but I can't really allocate it to somewhere else.
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# ? Jan 10, 2018 23:11 |
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Mikey Purp posted:Cool, thanks for the tips everyone. Why wouldn’t that money need a job? What’s so special about it? It’s either on budget, and every dollar has a job, or it’s off budget, and it doesn’t exist for budgetary purposes.
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# ? Jan 10, 2018 23:22 |
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Mikey Purp posted:Cool, thanks for the tips everyone. I keep my HSA off-budget since it's essentially another investment account for me. It shows up in reports and factors into my total net worth but I rarely use it so it's got no impact on my budget or spending. I do have a healthcare category in my budget but I don't really keep money in that bucket. Whenever I do have an occasional Dr visit or reimbursable purchase then I log the transaction normally and then do a transfer from my off-budget HSA account to checking with Healthcare as the category so that the two entries offset.
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# ? Jan 10, 2018 23:36 |
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Hmm, yeah so I guess my options are to just budget the balance of that account as "healthcare" or whatever and have a growing surplus until it's needed, or to just leave it off-budget as you describe? E: Also, starting mid-month, is this thing going to pull in my previous transactions for January or should I log them manually? Mikey Purp fucked around with this message at 00:26 on Jan 11, 2018 |
# ? Jan 11, 2018 00:18 |
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Mikey Purp posted:Hmm, yeah so I guess my options are to just budget the balance of that account as "healthcare" or whatever and have a growing surplus until it's needed, or to just leave it off-budget as you describe? Yup, your choice. Not set in stone either, you can change it later if you change your mind. Mikey Purp posted:E: Also, starting mid-month, is this thing going to pull in my previous transactions for January or should I log them manually? Neither. Just budget the money that still remains for this month in categories as you see fit. They'll be about half what you normally spend in a month but that's ok. It's much easier to start with adding your accounts, what's in them, and what that money is for, than to start with what was in them at the start of the month and then adding all the transactions to get them in sync with the current situation. There's also not much point in doing it.
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# ? Jan 11, 2018 00:36 |
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The first month I used YNAB I didn't even bother to set budget amounts: I just spent and categorized my spending. Yeah, I didn't have a plan, but since I didn't have any specifically allocated amounts I also didn't blow any categories. It was useful for establishing a baseline of what undisciplined spending, and what non-discretionary spending looked like. I didn't budget every dollar until about month 3 or month 4. I highly recommend easing into budgeting if you've never done it, because while it's super valuable, it's also enough different things to think about and potential stressors that it's worth not making it unpleasant on yourself.
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# ? Jan 11, 2018 02:55 |
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TheCenturion posted:If the savings account is on budget, i.e. the bank account is listed as a 'budget account' and you have a budget category labelled 'Long Term Savings' or whatever, you just remove money from that budget category, then budget it to whatever. You should also enter a transfer from the savings account to the checking account so that the account totals all reflect reality, as well. This is what I ended up doing that made the most sense in my head.
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# ? Jan 11, 2018 03:34 |
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Dwight Eisenhower posted:I didn't budget every dollar until about month 3 or month 4. I highly recommend easing into budgeting if you've never done it, because while it's super valuable, it's also enough different things to think about and potential stressors that it's worth not making it unpleasant on yourself. As a counterpoint, I had been doing enough spending in a way that I could track (cards, credit accounts, checks) for several months that the first month I hopped into budgeting I set pretty clear baskets. We ended up adjusting baskets up and down as we became comfortable with the changes it imposed on us, but we were in kind of a "transitional moment" and it made a lot more sense to us to make more changes at once.
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# ? Jan 11, 2018 19:37 |
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Dwight Eisenhower posted:The first month I used YNAB I didn't even bother to set budget amounts: I just spent and categorized my spending. Yeah, I didn't have a plan, but since I didn't have any specifically allocated amounts I also didn't blow any categories. It was useful for establishing a baseline of what undisciplined spending, and what non-discretionary spending looked like. Well, chances are a lot of your bills are fixed; there's always X amount coming out on the 5th for car insurance, there's always Y amount coming out on the 8th for hydro bill () and so on. Go ahead and budget that immediately. But, it's absolutely valid to just have a big old part called 'discretionary spending' that you dump a bunch of money into, then when you go to Burger King or whatever, you charge that amount to your 'restaurant' category, which then goes negative, then you move some budgeted dollars from 'discretionary' to 'restaurant.' Then, after several months, you get an idea of your average monthly spending, and you can start pre-allocating. Hell, I've been YNABing for years, and I still do this.
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# ? Jan 11, 2018 21:12 |
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Going full circle and marketing manual entry again. "Direct Import, Direct Schmimport" You know the headline feature of the new version of the app? Yeah, well, if you expect it to actually work correctly all the time you're just fussy. quote:Direct Import can make even the most wonderful YNABer a bit, um, fussy if it’s not working.
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# ? Jan 14, 2018 04:14 |
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Turns out that their reasons for not doing it in the first place are still valid today, and that the only reason they went with it in the first place was to justify the subscription model. I'm not surprised, or angry, just sad that they had a good thing and spoiled it.
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# ? Jan 14, 2018 10:11 |
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If mint ripped off ynab then ynab would be toast. I understand the pros of doing everything manually but drat, being able to see all of my accounts, balances and transactions in one place is still important to make sure im not being stolen from or something like that.
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# ? Jan 14, 2018 18:34 |
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I hope they aren't planning on discontinuing direct import..that would be a deal killer for me.
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# ? Jan 14, 2018 18:41 |
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FateFree posted:I hope they aren't planning on discontinuing direct import..that would be a deal killer for me. And then it turns out the YNAB way doesn't always work, and can result in mangled payees and bad data and delays, just like anything else that needs to touch the snarl of US bank imports inevitably does. And of course it doesn't work for people outside the US, for the most part. So if you're a control freak like me, manual is better, and they highlight that because they're ever so helpful to their customers! Never mind that they just raised rates because they could, or that their feature update/introduction schedule is slow as gently caress, or that the two main things nYNAB has over the old version (web access and direct import) aren't necessarily improvements for everybody, but are also big enough changes that rolling them back or shedding them would be a massive dealbreaker for the people that like them. I'd be sympathetic about the situation they're in if it seemed like they cared at all, but it's obvious that they don't.
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# ? Jan 14, 2018 20:53 |
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Someone needs to come in and make a good alternative because they must be making a killing at the equivalent of $7 a month for a glorified spreadsheet.
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# ? Jan 14, 2018 22:30 |
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I've never had to learn Excel for work and not yet for school. Does anybody put their CSVs into Excel to generate their own reports? How do you do it? Right now I only have two weeks of transactions, but I put them in a table and then made a pivot table. My problem now is how to display my liabilities (one credit card, ~$800). Currently it shows my starting balance as a huge outflow, which isn't wrong I suppose.
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# ? Jan 17, 2018 04:48 |
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Wait, they raised their prices? I am going to be so loving sad when a Dropbox API change fucks YNAB4 for good.
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# ? Jan 17, 2018 09:00 |
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The reason for the raise wasn't features, but "value". That's the most hilarious thing. In regards to development, it's as frozen as ever, nothing really happens.
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# ? Jan 17, 2018 14:28 |
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Henrik Zetterberg posted:Wait, they raised their prices? Me too. Apart from iPhone X support and being able to adjust budget from mobile (which they've already said they won't add to YNAB 4) it does everything I need.
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# ? Jan 17, 2018 21:07 |
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# ? May 14, 2024 02:51 |
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a dingus posted:Someone needs to come in and make a good alternative because they must be making a killing at the equivalent of $7 a month for a glorified spreadsheet. The Financier dev open-sourced the frontend and it seems he might be more proactive with getting pull requests integrated into the main site. You can even install it to your own server if you want, I did it just to screw around, but I don't mind paying the twelve bucks a year for the convenience of syncing. There's also another dev who developed a mobile web app and has said he's going to get into some development for the main site eventually. Might mean we finally get those scheduled transactions and some new features.
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# ? Jan 20, 2018 16:16 |