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Gothmog1065
May 14, 2009
Well, I finally got a hang on credit cards in YNAB. I'm actually eating the interest as part of my budget, so I can reduce the amount I actually "spend" on the card, and it kind of lets me track how much interest I'm accruing (too much).

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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

Gothmog1065 posted:

Well, I finally got a hang on credit cards in YNAB. I'm actually eating the interest as part of my budget, so I can reduce the amount I actually "spend" on the card, and it kind of lets me track how much interest I'm accruing (too much).

When I had rolling debt, I was putting interest as a charge to the credit card and as a part of the same category and the PRe-YNAB Debt.

Gothmog1065
May 14, 2009
Huh, somehow I missed that as a category, is that only in accounts that you set up with a Pre YNAB debt initially?

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

Gothmog1065 posted:

Huh, somehow I missed that as a category, is that only in accounts that you set up with a Pre YNAB debt initially?

Yeah, I believe that's the case. When you set up an account with pre-ynab debt, that becomes a category I believe...

Regardless, you can also have an interest category in your budget ( i think similar to what you're doing) so its just a matter of making sure you're properly accounting for it.

Mine just looked like this when I was doing that:



The interest was hidden from me on the budget but it was still a part of a huge budget item for me.

Shadowhand00 fucked around with this message at 22:22 on Jan 23, 2014

tuyop
Sep 15, 2006

Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted

Fun Shoe

Shadowhand00 posted:

Yeah, I believe that's the case. When you set up an account with pre-ynab debt, that becomes a category I believe...

Regardless, you can also have an interest category in your budget ( i think similar to what you're doing) so its just a matter of making sure you're properly accounting for it.

Mine just looked like this when I was doing that:



The interest was hidden from me on the budget but it was still a part of a huge budget item for me.

You can just create or rename pre-YNAB debt as a category too and if you move the card off budget (you should do this with a CC with a balance), transfers to it count as expenses that you can categorize just like pre-YNAB debt.

Old Fart
Jul 25, 2013
How do people track stocks or mutual funds? Is that even within the scope of YNAB? I have an employee stock purchase plan, which automatically makes transactions every pay period, and I'm soon going to be setting up some RRSP and TFSA accounts.

Any tips? I'd like for this stuff to be part of my net worth, because it's nice seeing that graph go up, but I'm not sure the best way to keep it updated.

LogisticEarth
Mar 28, 2004

Someone once told me, "Time is a flat circle".
I handle my retirement accounts as an off-budget account that I plan to update monthly or quarterly. It's still there, just not 100% up to date.

Old Fart
Jul 25, 2013
Do you bother logging transactions made through paycheck deductions, or just do a balance adjustment every month or quarter?

I suppose at the end of the day it doesn't really matter, except that I'd have a more accurate picture of how much of my actual income is going towards retirement and other investments. Since it's all been deducted automatically, I haven't been logging it as anything.

tuyop
Sep 15, 2006

Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted

Fun Shoe

Old Fart posted:

Do you bother logging transactions made through paycheck deductions, or just do a balance adjustment every month or quarter?

I suppose at the end of the day it doesn't really matter, except that I'd have a more accurate picture of how much of my actual income is going towards retirement and other investments. Since it's all been deducted automatically, I haven't been logging it as anything.

Well you could always take your income and add your automatic transfers from your paycheque and then split it as a transfer to your investments, and then adjust manually for returns every month or so.

100 HOGS AGREE
Oct 13, 2007
Grimey Drawer
I just update my off-budget accounts with a reconciliation transaction on the last day of every month so my reports are all accurate. My loans have the same problem because they accrue interest.

SimpleCoax
Aug 7, 2003

TV is the thing this year.
Hair Elf
Looks like YNAB is 50% off at http://www.macupdate.com today.

Also I have a question. I've been using YNAB for the past two months. How do you guys handle rollover balances from your categories you underspent? I feel like at the end of the month I will just budget them to zero so the balance doesn't accumulate. Is there a disadvantage to doing this? I would kind of like having a uniform budget over each month and having any rollover go to the available to budget number for the next month, rather than my budget numbers always matching the outflows.

100 HOGS AGREE
Oct 13, 2007
Grimey Drawer
I let almost everything accumulate and go into next month, and I adjust my allocations for the next month based on how much is already in a category. I'll move money around sometimes at the end of the month but I don't like the available to budget number to be anything but $0.00 in any given month.

Besides, letting categories grow is part of the point of YNAB. I want my Vehicle Repairs category to get bigger every month for example because a lot of car repairs don't happen on a monthly basis but I still want to budget for it on a monthly basis.

100 HOGS AGREE fucked around with this message at 21:20 on Jan 29, 2014

spincube
Jan 31, 2006

I spent :10bux: so I could say that I finally figured out what this god damned cube is doing. Get well Lowtax.
Grimey Drawer
I suppose there's no real answer. Instead of entering my fixed monthly bills (e.g. broadband) as their exact to-the-penny amount in the budget, I've rounded them up to the nearest pound. That way there's a nice round figure in the budget, and should prices go up I'll have a little bit put by to absorb the initial price increase. Worst comes to the worst, in about eight, nine years' time I get one bill for free...

and I suppose, in a perfect world, you should be spending from the Balance column anyway. Budget £200 for food, spend £175? I only need to budget £175 next month, so I can assign that spare £25 elsewhere.

spincube fucked around with this message at 21:28 on Jan 29, 2014

spwrozek
Sep 4, 2006

Sail when it's windy

Let it roll over. For example I budget $300 a month for vacation, but maybe take 2 or 3 total. If we go home to see our parents flights are about $700 for the two of us so we save accordingly in the months ahead. If i don't do that somehow I have to cut $400 out of my month to not over spend or take it out of savings. Same with my auto insurance that is paid once a year. I look at everything monthly and yearly.

I guess you could make separate saving categories so you don't touch the money. Also if you are always way under you might want to shift money out so you can put it to work.

LogisticEarth
Mar 28, 2004

Someone once told me, "Time is a flat circle".
Yeah, I'm in the "let it accumulate" camp. That way you build up a buffer in any one category.

SimpleCoax
Aug 7, 2003

TV is the thing this year.
Hair Elf

spincube posted:

I suppose there's no real answer. Instead of entering my fixed monthly bills (e.g. broadband) as their exact to-the-penny amount in the budget, I've rounded them up to the nearest pound. That way there's a nice round figure in the budget, and should prices go up I'll have a little bit put by to absorb the initial price increase. Worst comes to the worst, in about eight, nine years' time I get one bill for free...

and I suppose, in a perfect world, you should be spending from the Balance column anyway. Budget £200 for food, spend £175? I only need to budget £175 next month, so I can assign that spare £25 elsewhere.

I thought about this but if you base budgeting off the balance, then if you underspend like I always try to do, then your budget numbers would slowly fall and that is weird to me to wind up budgeting negative amounts for groceries, etc. I do have a car insurance category I let accumulate in the balance though, but anything under half yearly I feel like I want the rollovers to fall into money to budget next month to just push off into savings or emergency funds. I don't think I have the best grasp on YNAB yet. I used to just have a categorized budget I stuck to each month and as my checking account grew, I would periodically prune the checking extra to savings. In YNAB it feels like the numbers can start to runaway in each category and I just haven't cracked the code to how I want to use it yet, but I do really like it. I'm coming from Ace Budget where I've been typing my transactions immediately into my phone for years so YNAB feels fairly natural except for a few things like this. I think the main difference is previously my monthly budgets weren't linked to each other in any way.

Edit: Maybe I will also add that I am currently living on my savings, so at the moment I'm budgeting one large number without income. This is another thing that feels somewhat awkward to me in YNAB. I've just been letting the "available to budget" number roll over each month to watch it fall. The deferred income suggestion from the YNAB video for this doesn't make sense to me yet.

SimpleCoax fucked around with this message at 22:28 on Jan 29, 2014

tuyop
Sep 15, 2006

Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted

Fun Shoe

SimpleCoax posted:

I thought about this but if you base budgeting off the balance, then if you underspend like I always try to do, then your budget numbers would slowly fall and that is weird to me to wind up budgeting negative amounts for groceries, etc. I do have a car insurance category I let accumulate in the balance though, but anything under half yearly I feel like I want the rollovers to fall into money to budget next month to just push off into savings or emergency funds. I don't think I have the best grasp on YNAB yet. I used to just have a categorized budget I stuck to each month and as my checking account grew, I would periodically prune the checking extra to savings. In YNAB it feels like the numbers can start to runaway in each category and I just haven't cracked the code to how I want to use it yet, but I do really like it. I'm coming from Ace Budget where I've been typing my transactions immediately into my phone for years so YNAB feels fairly natural except for a few things like this. I think the main difference is previously my monthly budgets weren't linked to each other in any way.

Edit: Maybe I will also add that I am currently living on my savings, so at the moment I'm budgeting one large number without income. This is another thing that feels somewhat awkward to me in YNAB. I've just been letting the "available to budget" number roll over each month to watch it fall. The deferred income suggestion from the YNAB video for this doesn't make sense to me yet.

If you're consistently spending less than you budget in a category that does not have a large irregular expense, then you're not budgeting accurately. It makes no sense for me to plan to spend (read: budget) $600 on groceries when I know I only spend 300-350 every month.

If it's just fifty bucks or something, the same is true, just plan to spend less on that line because you have some money left over for that and save the balance.

spincube
Jan 31, 2006

I spent :10bux: so I could say that I finally figured out what this god damned cube is doing. Get well Lowtax.
Grimey Drawer

SimpleCoax posted:

I don't think I have the best grasp on YNAB yet.

On the contrary: I think you've found a system that works for you. All I'd suggest is that, while challenging yourself to save money is an admirable goal, you take a look at whether you're setting realistic budget amounts in the first place :)

SimpleCoax posted:

if you base budgeting off the balance, then if you underspend like I always try to do, then your budget numbers would slowly fall and that is weird to me to wind up budgeting negative amounts for groceries, etc.

It's just a matter of perspective. For example, the 'Balance' could be the maximum you'd allow yourself to spend on something each month, that you subtract from during the month and top off at the start of the next - or it could be something you'd rather see grow and grow, like your holiday savings fund.

I've got a 'Savings Goals' master category with everything I'm putting money away for - obviously I want those balance numbers to go up as much as possible. I've also got more mundane, obvious categories like 'food', where I keep a set amount allowed per month in the balance: whatever I spend, I 'put back' in the next month's budget, so there's always a fixed amount available to spend. If I spend it, fine; if I don't, whatever, it's a little bit left over for next month.

Giant Goats
Mar 7, 2010

SimpleCoax posted:

Looks like YNAB is 50% off at http://www.macupdate.com today.

Also I have a question. I've been using YNAB for the past two months. How do you guys handle rollover balances from your categories you underspent? I feel like at the end of the month I will just budget them to zero so the balance doesn't accumulate. Is there a disadvantage to doing this? I would kind of like having a uniform budget over each month and having any rollover go to the available to budget number for the next month, rather than my budget numbers always matching the outflows.

It depends on the category. I overbudget a little for groceries to allow for the weeks when I inevitably run out of three or four staples at the same time, or when I'm called upon to bake something for work or have a guest over at mealtimes. In that case, I use the extra for debt repayment once I know whether I'm going to use it all. For most of my other categories, I roll over to use them as a combined budget and short-term savings thing - for instance, whatever's left over in my household category just goes towards bigger household purchases like new curtains or a new lamp, and whatever's left over after paying my phone bill goes towards saving up for a new phone.

There's no reason not to do things the way you propose, although long-term you'll probably want to adjust your budgeting if you're consistently overestimating your expenses.

Old Fart
Jul 25, 2013
I have mine split into four sections: monthly bills, monthly consumables, quality of life, and savings. I'm also a month ahead, so everything gets budgeted at once. It took me a while to settle on a system I liked. Being a month ahead also helps me be more flexible during the month without stressing over the next paycheck.

The monthly bills have almost all already come in, so those are budgeted to the penny. Anything extra gets zeroed out and dumped elsewhere (usually baby savings).

Monthly consumables are things like groceries and medical and cats. Some of these zero out, but others accumulate. The main one to accumulate is cats, to handle emergency vet visits. Groceries are zeroed and added to savings.

Quality of life are personal allowances, home improvement, restaurants, activities fund, vacations, etc. These categories roll over, but they're also the most flexible. If we go over in groceries, then maybe the vacation fund takes a hit.

Savings is long-term goals. At least 25% is put in retirement and is never touched no matter what. Other savings goals might be touched, but as a last resort. When I zero out the monthly categories, overflow goes here.

In the end, find a system that works for you. Before I got a month ahead, I was more inclined to let things roll over, since I might need that buffer if I came up short one week. But now everything is budgeted at once, so zeroing at the end of the month is effectively the same thing as letting it roll over and budgeting less for the following month. I just like the clean look of zero, and if I put the extra into savings for the month that's ending, then it's less likely to get compromised in the next active month, if that makes any sense.

Veskit
Mar 2, 2005

I love capitalism!! DM me for the best investing advice!
I'm going through the online tutorials on how to set up the credit card debt on YNAB, and the tutorial shows that you do interest by having it do an outflow and you see the negative on you outflows. Is it better to make a separate interest expense line item to budget to make it easier to track, or should I just stick to what they are teaching?

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

Veskit posted:

I'm going through the online tutorials on how to set up the credit card debt on YNAB, and the tutorial shows that you do interest by having it do an outflow and you see the negative on you outflows. Is it better to make a separate interest expense line item to budget to make it easier to track, or should I just stick to what they are teaching?

I just stuck with what they were teaching since you're goign to have to pay it off eventually anwyay. See the first posts on this page for examples of what it'd look like.

Old Fart
Jul 25, 2013
It's easy to search for payees, if you want to see how much interest you've paid.

Veskit
Mar 2, 2005

I love capitalism!! DM me for the best investing advice!
Just wanted to make sure I was doing things right and not messing up my neat reports. Thanks everyone!

Lady Gaza
Nov 20, 2008

Earlier in the thread I asked how to manage getting paid at the end of the month. What I ended up doing was only budgeting for bills and expenses that came out after my paycheque and before the start of the new month. For example on the 25th my money comes in and on the 27th I pay rent. I also budget eg £2 for a coffee at work for the final week of the month, then once the new month starts budget another £6 or whatever for the first three weeks of that month.

Because I like to have the budget at zero, any leftover money from the end of say January is put into a 'carryover' category; I then enter this value as a negative for February which gives me the money available only in February. If I didn't do this I'd have a fair amount 'available to budget' at the end of January and could see myself chipping away at this without thinking. By zeroing the budget and carrying over the leftover money I make sure I don't overspend.

YNAB is finally clicking :)

Lady Gaza fucked around with this message at 09:57 on Jan 30, 2014

Old Fart
Jul 25, 2013
Yeah, that works.

Something else to consider is just budgeting it in February right away. You can have the overage in January, but train yourself not to look at that, instead making sure the big number at the top of February is at zero.

You seem like a good candidate to get to Step 4 of YNAB almost immediately, since you're used to getting paid near the end of the month. The bills you get during the month likely aren't due until the first or second week of the following month. Does your rent need to be paid on the 27th, or is it really due on the 1st? If the latter, then you really only need to save enough during February to cover your coffee for the last week, and then budget all those bills at the start of March. Then your February paycheck is marked as "income for March" and you budget it all at the same time. No doing partial budgets, no throwing into a carryover category just to subtract it a week later. Having your pay set as income for the following month is like YNAB doing the carryover for you.

If your rent is truly due on the 27th, it's still probable those bills aren't due until the following month, right? In that case, see if you can save 33% of your rent for the next three months and put it in a "buffer" category, then when you have enough for rent, you can do the negative thing in four months.

Step 4 of YNAB is a really great spot. It's so much nicer not to have to do partial budgets, and to allocate budget and pay all bills at the same time.

Shyfted One
May 9, 2008
So I reconciled my CC after my bank account and didn't notice that the dates I paid the CC were vastly different from what my CC considered the date. So I had a payment shown as 1/14 on my bank statement, but showed up as 1/08 on my CC statement. The problem is that my statement cuts off on the 11th so here I was working backwards to figure out my starting balance for 2013 without taking into account a 2nd payment. I have no idea why the monthly CC statement uses transaction date, the year end categorized report uses post date, and online shows both, but it's annoying as gently caress for there to be no consistency.

So now I've learned to not use Transfers for payments and I'll just handle payments separately on both ends and I did eventually manage to get everything to match up. The balance is currently correct for all of my accounts, but on my Budget screen it's showing my CC balance as what I changed it to for the start of 2013 (after accidentally reconciling the incorrect amount) and not my current balance. Is there a way to fix this?

Gothmog1065
May 14, 2009
Anyone know if there is a way to pull a scheduled payment ahead when you pay it, rather than wait for it to drop?

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

Gothmog1065 posted:

Anyone know if there is a way to pull a scheduled payment ahead when you pay it, rather than wait for it to drop?

Right click on it and select "Enter in register now"

Tayter Swift
Nov 18, 2002

Pillbug
How do you budget in expected income so it becomes Available to Budget at top? I just filed my tax returns and I know I'll be getting them in February, and want to pencil in plans for it.

spinst
Jul 14, 2012



The whole point of YNAB is that you only budget money you currently have. It won't become available to budget until you actually put it in your register.

lament.cfg
Dec 28, 2006

we have such posts
to show you




Eegah posted:

How do you budget in expected income so it becomes Available to Budget at top? I just filed my tax returns and I know I'll be getting them in February, and want to pencil in plans for it.

That's not how YNAB is designed to work -- forecasting income breaks the pattern. You're only supposed to budget cash you have in-hand.

Tayter Swift
Nov 18, 2002

Pillbug
We'll that's irksome, kinda makes planning for larger items more difficult. Thanks.

lament.cfg
Dec 28, 2006

we have such posts
to show you




Eegah posted:

We'll that's irksome, kinda makes planning for larger items more difficult. Thanks.

If you want to get more specific, we can probably help a little better. Are you saving up to buy something in February, or have a bill coming due, or...?

100 HOGS AGREE
Oct 13, 2007
Grimey Drawer
Putting in an income transaction on a future date and not marking it as cleared will add it to your available to budget amount.

You can do it, it's just discouraged by the YNAB method because a big part of the point is never accounting for money you don't have right this second, so you don't overextend yourself and start spending money you think you'll have and then what happens when you don't get that money?

But if you want to there's nothing in the software that will stop you. Hell, you could put in all your paychecks for the rest of the year if you really want to. But I wouldn't.

100 HOGS AGREE fucked around with this message at 16:14 on Jan 31, 2014

DrBouvenstein
Feb 28, 2007

I think I'm a doctor, but that doesn't make me a doctor. This fancy avatar does.
For some reason, YNAB isn't subtracting my over-budget amount from next month's budget. Here's a screencap:


As you can see, "Fuel" is overbidget in Jan by ~$25, because I had to gas up yesterday...I tried to make it to the end of the month to make everything "play nice," but my gas light was on and angry.

Anyway, since I know I likely won't have to gas up in Feb. because I filled my tank yesterday, or at the most only need half a tank, I figure I'll have YNAB auto-subtract it from next month's budget...but it's not. Feb. fuel budget is still sitting there at $50, not $24.86.

If I select "subtract it from next month's category balance" that works, and the $50 in the balance goes down to $24.86...but I'd prefer it the first way, it's just not doing it.

Yes, I can manually edit it (and I will,) but how do I use that option in the future to make things go smoother?

lament.cfg
Dec 28, 2006

we have such posts
to show you




You've got it set to subtract from the overarching pool of available money for February, "Available to Budget". That's the number that appears in the top in big green numbers, as money yet to be budgeted.

For what you're describing, you want to select the second option which will subtract it from the Fuel category next month. The transaction was conducted in January so it lives in January, but the available amount to be spent out of your $50 fuel budget will be reduced because of the rollover transaction.

lament.cfg fucked around with this message at 16:13 on Jan 31, 2014

Tayter Swift
Nov 18, 2002

Pillbug
Buying a plane ticket next week. I just got my monthly salary and covering it from my checking account's side is zero problem, but from YNAB's point of view I've already given every dollar from my take-home a job this month.

The tax return will probably get here in the middle of the month.

Basically the tax return is a good boost to my inflow for the month, but it's not part of the regular first-of-the-month paycheck so I can't give its dollars a job in YNAB's world, even though I know what I want to do with it.

I suppose what I could do is make a category for the plane ticket, them when the refund gets here I can divert part of its inflow to that category to balance it out.

lament.cfg
Dec 28, 2006

we have such posts
to show you




What you're describing, while it makes sense to you, from YNAB (and or an excel spreadsheet or checkbook register)'s perspective is overspending your budget.

A) Allocate current dollars to a "Plane Ticket" category by reducing the budgeted amount in other categories.

B) Temporarily go over-budget in whatever category you enter the Plane Ticket transaction, when you actually spend that money. Then allocate the Tax Refund money to that category once the money arrives.

Either of those will follow the YNAB method, but the point in either is that you can't budget money that you don't have. (Within the YNAB system. Not physically. You get me.)

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100 HOGS AGREE
Oct 13, 2007
Grimey Drawer

Eegah posted:

Buying a plane ticket next week. I just got my monthly salary and covering it from my checking account's side is zero problem, but from YNAB's point of view I've already given every dollar from my take-home a job this month.

The tax return will probably get here in the middle of the month.
Generally what I'd do is reduce some of my regular categories that I don't think will come up by the time that return comes in and use that money to fund the ticket, then replace those amounts when the return actually comes in.

Your budget is a living thing, even if it's a hassle to shuffle poo poo around it's best for it to reflect reality as it is now than not. I move money around all the time in a bunch of categories as my actual needs change from what I thought they would be at the beginning of the month, or if I'm bored. Usually when I'm bored and just poking at my budget.

100 HOGS AGREE fucked around with this message at 16:22 on Jan 31, 2014

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