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Ur Getting Fatter posted:I think that might've been me, but in any case I'm glad someone else out there is also wasting way too much time on their budgets, like me.  I found that out as I was digging into the data. What I did was have a YNAB import tab that will be where it sucks it all in and then have a Register tab that just looks at the cells on the import tab and brings them over. This is the one that I actually will work with, nice and easy. Just need to remember every few years to carry down the formulae. Will check out the Zapier stuff! If I end up making a dope PowerBI / Google Sheet integration I'll be sure to share it with the broader group as well.
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Jan 27, 2020 18:39
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TraderStav posted:At the end of each month, if you have negative balances in categories do you bring them to zero or leave them as negative and budget to cover the negative 'to be budgeted' balance? The former is nice and clean but doesn't provide detail around what you intended to do and what happened. I was going to ask exactly this. I typically do both, but not in any consistent matter. I think what I want to do going forward is to leave them negative, and let YNAB take money off my next months TBB. The reason is so I can go back to previous months and easily see what categories I overspent by just looking for red. Seeing a zeroed out month, I always ask myself "did I actually budget this amount, or did I overspend and just cover it with other money?" So to answer your question, I think I'm going to leave them red for easy identification, and like you said, see the planned/actuals. e: I have like 400-500 days age of money, so I'm not worried about running out of money spontaneously. I can see how other people who aren't rule 4 yet, may want to flatten categories with money from others. Henrik Zetterberg fucked around with this message at 19:29 on Jan 27, 2020 |
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Jan 27, 2020 19:26
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Not sure if this is the right thread, but I'm in a stable budget now with YNAB and have some money budgeted for just in case things like furniture, weekend trips, my next cell phone, etc. The point is, this money adds up to a decent chunk, but I really don't see myself spending across all the categories in any given month. Right now it's sitting in savings accounts getting piddly interest. Would it be a terrible idea to create an on-budget investment account in something with medium risk like an intermediate bond fund or something? I'm okay with potentially losing money on this since the budget categories are mostly luxuries to me. And the emergency fund is staying in a savings account.
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Jan 27, 2020 19:38
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Giant Metal Robot posted:Not sure if this is the right thread, but I'm in a stable budget now with YNAB and have some money budgeted for just in case things like furniture, weekend trips, my next cell phone, etc. Why make it on budget? On budget money is money that you know will be there when you need it. Just make it off budget if you want to keep tracking it.
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Jan 27, 2020 19:41
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Giant Metal Robot posted:Not sure if this is the right thread, but I'm in a stable budget now with YNAB and have some money budgeted for just in case things like furniture, weekend trips, my next cell phone, etc. You've got a good problem: how do I budget all of this money? I advise you to do one of two things: - Make peace with the opportunity cost of only having savings account returns on your money, because you want to have liquid balance available for all of these minutia categories when you'll need them and that structure on your spending is useful for you. - Smash all of these discretionary things into one category (e.g. "Intermittent Expenses"), make an off-budget bond fund, budget money to go to the bond fund, and when you want to incur one of these intermittent expenses, liquidate the bond fund to cover it, transfer it back into an on-budget account and categorize it as income, and then budget it for the Intermittent Expense. I do the latter with my brokerage account; yeah putting money in a brokerage account is not intuitively spending, but for your budget's purposes it is spending. You're taking those dollars away from being used for other jobs.
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Jan 27, 2020 19:46
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You could stick them into a CD ladder if you know when you need which amounts. Even a bond fund is a bit risky if you need your money within a year or so.
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Jan 27, 2020 19:51
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Anyone have input on how to track reimbursable pre-tax FSA accounts for daycare? Here's my first stab: - Create budget category "daycare." Put a monthly budget amount of [$total_monthly_daycare_cost - ($5000 / 12)]. Where $5000 is the max I can contribute to the FSA account and have reimbursed. - Create on-budget account for FSA. - Every paycheck, my $192 pretax money goes into the FSA account with the budget category of "inflow: daycare." - Whenever I request a reimbursement, I just do a simple transfer from on-budget FSA account to my checking account? I think my inflow of "daycare" seems to make more sense than marking it as "to be budgeted." In the latter, that reimbursement money would look like income in reports, while if I did the former, it looks exactly like a reimbursement. Does that make sense or should I be marking it as "to be budged" instead? Henrik Zetterberg fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Jan 27, 2020 |
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Jan 27, 2020 20:07
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TraderStav posted:At the end of each month, if you have negative balances in categories do you bring them to zero or leave them as negative and budget to cover the negative 'to be budgeted' balance? The former is nice and clean but doesn't provide detail around what you intended to do and what happened. I'm zeroing them immediately. Like, the moment I make the overbudget purchase, I'm working out what I am taking out of another discretionary account to make up for the difference. In my mind there two classes of budgeted items in there: stuff I can touch and shuffle around as priorities shift and untouchable stuff (rent, savings). I use the spending goals to track what I'd thought my plan was for the month. I'm not super worried about that for the discretionary spending anyway. So long as the important stuff is getting covered, the foolishness is essentially fungible.
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Jan 27, 2020 21:13
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Dwight Eisenhower posted:- Smash all of these discretionary things into one category (e.g. "Intermittent Expenses"), make an off-budget bond fund, budget money to go to the bond fund, and when you want to incur one of these intermittent expenses, liquidate the bond fund to cover it, transfer it back into an on-budget account and categorize it as income, and then budget it for the Intermittent Expense. I think I half understand this. So the steps would be. 1. Create off-budget bond account 2. Create a budget category for intermittent expenses. Move all my intermittent expenses subcategories (e.g. phone replacement, bike replacement) to that category. (maybe not necessary but a good mental reminder) 3. Add a transaction for each subcategory for the amount budgeted to be paid to my off-budget account. So I spend $700 on a "new bike", but really bought a bond etf or something 5. When I want to actually replace my bike, I sell off $700 of the ETF and transfer that back to the budget as income It's a weird problem to have. I've used YNAB to self-insure some items that I know I will replace eventually but are perfectly fine now. My current bike might keep going for another five years. If it doesn't, I have a budget line to replace/upgrade it in a weekend. If it does, the budget line I have for it will lose value to inflation.
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Jan 28, 2020 04:13
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You could always have a 'on budget' Bond account where you record gains and losses (and dividends) as income and expenses. For short term savings, I'm no sure that the slight increase in interest is worth the volatility (bonds have volatility, it's just much, much lower than the stock market). As an example: the Vanguard BND fund dropped from ~$82 in Oct 2017 to ~$78 in Oct 2018 before recovering to ~$84 in Oct 2019. Depending on when your bike broke, that could wipe out the interest benefits, which are, like, a 1% premium over a savings account. I think you're likely better off just getting the highest interest savings account you can find and parking it there. For the 'likely to be 5 years that I hold this' money, then yeah, sure maybe a bond fund would be worth the risk in return for a bit more upside. But there are vehicles like no penalty CDs that might be better for your needs?
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Jan 28, 2020 14:07
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Giant Metal Robot posted:I think I half understand this. So the steps would be. Almost. You spend $700 on 'Bond Fund', and away that money goes, without any interaction with 'intermittent expenses'. When you want to actually replace your bike, you liquidate $700 out of the Bond Fund and transfer it back into an on-budget account. This is income, available this month. You take this now additional income and apply it to 'Intermittent Expenses', so it's now +$700. You buy bike, 'Intermittent Expenses' is back down to Net 0. It DOESN'T help you track progress toward goals, but it does keep you from needing to categorize every dividend and default. And that's the other thing that it manages "most correctly" imo: you do have a risk of default, so even if you socked the money away for the goal over time and then put it in the bond fund, that doesn't guarantee that it will be there when it's time to spend it. I don't think it makes sense to intertwine volatility in your investments with spending planning: you should get all funds that you're using for budgeting away from risk before you plan with them. If it's not in an FDIC insured account with nominal 0 risk, it's not on your budget.
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Jan 28, 2020 15:02
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Dwight's advice is better than mine.
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Jan 28, 2020 15:06
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Henrik Zetterberg posted:Anyone have input on how to track reimbursable pre-tax FSA accounts for daycare? But it is income, just income that you don't pay taxes on because you have qualified daycare expenses. I guess I don't see the point in tracking the FSA account and adding that complexity. We have our FSA daycare reimbursements (which is just income being given back to you after proof of daycare expenses) go straight into the to be budgeted, and we set a monthly budget amount in the daycare category like any other category. I think if you set it up as an inflow like you're describing you're essentially removing 5k of income from your income reports that should be there.
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Jan 28, 2020 15:28
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Dwight Eisenhower posted:Almost. You spend $700 on 'Bond Fund', and away that money goes, without any interaction with 'intermittent expenses'. Makes sense. Thanks.
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Jan 29, 2020 01:52
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Ranidas posted:But it is income, just income that you don't pay taxes on because you have qualified daycare expenses. Yeah, makes sense. Although, it's going to offset the amount of money we actually spend in daycare by 5k in reports since it'll be categorized as TBB. I guess in the end it doesn't really matter. I'll probably just create an off-budget account that takes my per-paycheck contributions, then when I request a reimbursement, just transfer it to my on-budget account as TBB.
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Jan 29, 2020 07:01
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For those of you that make manual imports, how often do you do it? I try to do it weekly but lately life has been chaos and now I'm way behind.
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Jan 29, 2020 14:26
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Ur Getting Fatter posted:For those of you that make manual imports, how often do you do it? I add transactions every couple of days, usually takes 5-10 mins to check my accounts and update YNAB with new transactions. I don't use file based importing though.
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Jan 29, 2020 16:46
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I'm on YNAB4 and I import a transaction via mobile whenever it occurs. I also have YNAB pretty much permanently open on my home desktop and reconcile every few days
Beach Bum fucked around with this message at 03:24 on Jan 31, 2020 |
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Jan 29, 2020 17:19
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I was hoping to get back into YNAB4 and logging transactions for January. I didn't, but I just spent the last few hours collecting bills, dates, and paycheck stubs to set up a budget beginning February 1st. Got it linked in dropbox and appearing in the classic app on my android. Back on the wagon. 
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Jan 30, 2020 00:57
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I know this isn't the feature most people are looking for, but I'm about to go through a divorce and budgeting software and a comprehensive picture of our finances make this process unimaginably easier.
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Jan 30, 2020 14:53
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EAT FASTER!!!!!! posted:I know this isn't the feature most people are looking for, but I'm about to go through a divorce and budgeting software and a comprehensive picture of our finances make this process unimaginably easier. You’re entering the world all of us personal finance geeks dream of, total control over the budget. Congratulations, no more random poo poo popping up after you perfected the numbers!
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Jan 30, 2020 23:34
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TraderStav posted:You’re entering the world all of us personal finance geeks dream of, total control over the budget. Congratulations, no more random poo poo popping up after you perfected the numbers! I recently came quite close to shredding a credit card because my SO, as an authorized user, kept making small purchases with it and I didn't want to keep manually logging her lunch and shopping trips with YNAB4. I told her it was for important purchases only! **Dunkin Donuts $6.47** **Habit Grill $13.37** 
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Jan 31, 2020 00:08
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Try having a kid or two in figure skating. Holy poo poo that loving pie slice in reports, and constantly red number in the budget line item. 
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Jan 31, 2020 00:32
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Henrik Zetterberg posted:Try having a kid or two in figure skating. Holy poo poo that loving pie slice in reports, and constantly red number in the budget line item. Wait why? What else besides skates? Rink fees and travel I’m guessing? Maybe outfits since it’s figure skating? My kid is 15 months old so he hasn’t exactly taken to a sport yet.
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Jan 31, 2020 00:50
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Ur Getting Fatter posted:For those of you that make manual imports, how often do you do it? Daily. Every morning seven days a week, after walking the dog and while I’m finishing a nice cup of coffee. Now that I’m on nYNAB I reconcile every day too. I’ll caveat that I rather enjoy it so I’m just weird.
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Jan 31, 2020 02:47
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Ur Getting Fatter posted:For those of you that make manual imports, how often do you do it? Transactions normally get entered immediately, but occasionally I’ll have a few days worth back up. I try to reconcile accounts once a week or so. I pay all my bills at the start of the month for the entire month so I spend an hour or so on the 1st in front of my PC, but the rest of it is pretty quick.
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Jan 31, 2020 02:50
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Tayter Swift posted:Daily. Every morning seven days a week, after walking the dog and while I’m finishing a nice cup of coffee. Now that I’m on nYNAB I reconcile every day too. Ohgod I was terrified I was alone in this, I was hedging my bets up-thread a bit so I didn't sound completely insane 
Beach Bum fucked around with this message at 03:43 on Jan 31, 2020 |
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Jan 31, 2020 03:23
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Beach Bum posted:Ohgod I was terrified I was alone in this, I was hedging my best up-thread a bit so I didn't sound completely insane Every morning for a decade, especially with coffee. It's relaxing. People think I'm crazy but I'm also taking my family of five to Hawaii in a few weeks and then to Greece for a month over the summer without impacting any of our other goals. So ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Jan 31, 2020 03:36
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nwin posted:Wait why? What else besides skates? Rink fees and travel I’m guessing? Maybe outfits since it’s figure skating? My kid is 15 months old so he hasn’t exactly taken to a sport yet. $1000 skates with custom parabolic blades that they grow out of every year, private lessons x5000, travel competitions, costumes/props (1 per routine!). Thankfully my wife finds a lot of stuff second hand. It’s still a loving sinkhole of money with the amount of private lessons needed to be competitive. I want to die when I see the yearly total. My wife always asks if she can be a stay at home mom and I joke (sort of) that the girls have to give up skating. She still works.
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Jan 31, 2020 04:27
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Ur Getting Fatter posted:For those of you that make manual imports, how often do you do it? As often as possible. Preferably at least twice a week. I like to think I do it every day, but that would be lying. And lying makes baby jesus cry. I also reconcile before I close the program. Every time, no exceptions, as a way to make the future easier for myself. I don't have any credit cards and no automatic outflows. Everything's manual. This is an edge case, so it might not be particularly helpful to your situation. But I have bipolar disorder, so chaos reigns on an irregular basis, leaving me behind on more or less everything. So when I'm back to reality, I have to roll up my sleeves and get my house back in order. This is never fun, often shameful and a huge hassle. But knowing that I reconciled my accounts the last time I updated relieves me of that "wait, did I note this already?" extra work. Every transaction in my bank accounts since I last opened YNAB are new. Everything before I went off the rails can be ignored. It's not foolproof. And I still have to punch in all the numbers. But it's the best way I've come up with to deal with the aftermath of chaos. As an added bonus it's a nice way to show my dumb brain that things are settling back down. And I like to think that over time I've developed some sort of financial muscle memory that curtails the worst of my stupid spending, even in the midst of a hypomanic episode. I'm also finding it helpful to have a visual record of when I go off the rails, because even sad data is beautiful. But that's a different subject for a different thread.
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Jan 31, 2020 06:12
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I do my manual check and reconciliation every month around when the credit card statement becomes available. Most of our transactions are there and I always found it easier to have a pdf I can check things off of in case the number doesn't match at the end. It's also pretty close to the end of the month so it's a good time for me to check/cover category overspending too.
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Jan 31, 2020 07:55
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Are the people who reconcile every day also spending money every day, or are there a lot of mornings where it's "nope, no change"?
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Jan 31, 2020 12:24
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I do daily grocery shopping, so yes. Furthermore, as a disclaimer, I am slicing pennies to throw at credit card debt. Once I'm free and clear, hopefully by the end of this year, I'll be a little bit more relaxed with my budget category allowances, and I won't be spending as much time with that aspect of things.
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Jan 31, 2020 12:30
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uvar posted:Are the people who reconcile every day also spending money every day, or are there a lot of mornings where it's "nope, no change"? I'm married so yes, there are plenty of daily transactions!
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Jan 31, 2020 12:51
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uvar posted:Are the people who reconcile every day also spending money every day, or are there a lot of mornings where it's "nope, no change"? I have 2 credit cards, a checking, a savings, and then 2 business each with a card and checking, so everyday there is something whether it's a bill or charge or interest income whatever. I reconcile every day because it only takes 2 minutes and you immediately know if something doesn't match up. If you wait till long you might have to fish through to see if anything is wrong.
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Jan 31, 2020 18:55
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Henrik Zetterberg posted:$1000 skates with custom parabolic blades that they grow out of every year, private lessons x5000, travel competitions, costumes/props (1 per routine!). Holy gently caress. I hope my son does swimming or something. Trunks and goggles aren’t expensive at least.
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Jan 31, 2020 19:19
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I import credit cards and bank accounts every few days while having coffee in the morning. Cash spending gets entered as I go in the app. But I'm also not likely to run out of money, so it's OK if some budgets have to be tweaked a few days after being spent. If things are tighter then entering CC/Debit transactions as you go is the right procedure.
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Jan 31, 2020 19:33
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nwin posted:Holy gently caress. I hope my son does swimming or something. Trunks and goggles aren’t expensive at least. Honestly, I'm pretty convinced that any competitive sport for kids these days is a colossal money sinkhole. There's just too many rich parents that will throw any amount of money at a kid's sport to make them better in the hopes they'll be an Olympic athlete or some poo poo. Extreme case in point: Bay Area figure skaters. Holy poo poo do they set piles of money on fire to get a competitive edge so they can vicariously live through their kids. One of my daughters also plays on a competitive soccer team and she's at the age where they're starting to travel a lot more for tournaments. We're fast approaching the point in time where she has to choose, not only because of money, but time commitment as well. The only "cheap" sport is my son's high school cross-country team. A lot of it is paid for by boosters, but there's still a shitload of travel involved with invitationals, sectionals, state competitions, etc. Thankfully no overnight trips yet, just a few pairs of $120 running shoes. Moral of the story: YNAB likes it way better when you don't have kids.
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Jan 31, 2020 20:05
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nwin posted:Holy gently caress. I hope my son does swimming or something. Trunks and goggles aren’t expensive at least. Ha ha holy poo poo swimming is not cheap
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Feb 4, 2020 03:06
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Voodoofly posted:Ha ha holy poo poo swimming is not cheap Dammit
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Feb 4, 2020 04:11
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