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spwrozek
Sep 4, 2006

Sail when it's windy

Old Fart posted:

My debit card was compromised a few months ago. They got $800. It was cleared up and credit back within a week, but still. That's a reason not to keep an emergency fund in checking.

Up here in Canada, we get 1% savings! Woohoo!

Who actually uses a debt card? Use credit for everything. If your information isn't out there it is hard to steal it. I suppose if they got the routing and account number but seems less likely.

You really can't be that paranoid about your money. Just setup account alerts on the checking and be done with it. Every transaction sends me a text. If it is fraudulent it takes 2 min to stop it and cancel the card or change account numbers.

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LogisticEarth
Mar 28, 2004

Someone once told me, "Time is a flat circle".
Yeah, a while ago I just stopped using my debit card all together, except at a few places that only take debit and not credit. Just pay off the credit at the end of the month. Since this is the YNAB thread, I assume you're following a budget and not grossly overspending what you have available.

Get a rewards card too. I get a point for every dollar spent, which translates into an effective 1% discount on every purchase.

Tayter Swift
Nov 18, 2002

Pillbug

gariig posted:

Technically you are paying for the ticket with your own cash not the refund. You purchase the ticket, record the expense in YNAB, and go negative in the Vacation category. So you remove some cash from your reserves right now to 0 out the balance. When you get the refund you can increase the categories that you borrowed from.

Booked the flight and this is basically what I did. And thanks to YNAB I went from "Hm, can I afford this ticket before I get my refund?!?" to "Yes, I can afford it and here's the evidence." Thanks thread :)

Old Fart
Jul 25, 2013

spwrozek posted:

Who actually uses a debt card? Use credit for everything. If your information isn't out there it is hard to steal it.
You're right, and more spending has gone to the credit card.

The reason it's not more yet is two reasons:

1) Debit shows up on the statement immediately, whereas credit takes a few days. We've only recently gotten good at budgeting, and this was very helpful when getting started. But these days we only reconcile once a week or so, so it's less necessary.

2) We've traditionally really sucked at credit cards, having no impulse control. That seems to be gone now, but I'm honestly a little afraid of slipping into old habits. I don't think that's a real big risk, but it's still a big step. Once we get used to using credit cards again, it seems so easy to relapse into "well, we can buy this thing because we don't really have to pay it off immediately..." I realize this is no different than spending from a debit account that has $10k of previously-budgeted savings sitting in it, but it just feels like breaking a seal.

Anyway, I no longer use my debit online, and in person it's all through the interac chip, so at least it's secure.

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

Old Fart posted:

You're right, and more spending has gone to the credit card.

The reason it's not more yet is two reasons:

1) Debit shows up on the statement immediately, whereas credit takes a few days. We've only recently gotten good at budgeting, and this was very helpful when getting started. But these days we only reconcile once a week or so, so it's less necessary.

2) We've traditionally really sucked at credit cards, having no impulse control. That seems to be gone now, but I'm honestly a little afraid of slipping into old habits. I don't think that's a real big risk, but it's still a big step. Once we get used to using credit cards again, it seems so easy to relapse into "well, we can buy this thing because we don't really have to pay it off immediately..." I realize this is no different than spending from a debit account that has $10k of previously-budgeted savings sitting in it, but it just feels like breaking a seal.

Anyway, I no longer use my debit online, and in person it's all through the interac chip, so at least it's secure.

I used to have really bad impulse control and it flares up at times. The biggest thing that helps me though is ensuring that I register any purchase I make onto the YNAB mobile account, or immediately after I get home. Its a great way to really control yourself through the rules you set up yourself through your budget. If you REALLY WANT THOSE CORDOVAN SHOES, and you make that purchase despite all pretense of self control, you're still going to have to register that purchase into YNAB at some point an see how it damages the rest of your finances. Doing it up front, prior to making the purchase, helps you put a check on the impulse thing.

Old Fart
Jul 25, 2013

Shadowhand00 posted:

Doing it up front, prior to making the purchase, helps you put a check on the impulse thing.
It's not even that bad. There's no real risk of spending on the spot. The risk is more justifying a big purchase while at home. It's nuts, I know. And to stay on topic, YNAB has really helped this tremendously. It wasn't until using it that I truly understood that credit cards are tools for spending money already earned.

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

Old Fart posted:

It's not even that bad. There's no real risk of spending on the spot. The risk is more justifying a big purchase while at home. It's nuts, I know. And to stay on topic, YNAB has really helped this tremendously. It wasn't until using it that I truly understood that credit cards are tools for spending money already earned.

I wish I had this lesson punched into me earlier in life. Its so important for kids to know.

Moneyball
Jul 11, 2005

It's a problem you think we need to explain ourselves.

spwrozek posted:

Who actually uses a debt card? Use credit for everything. \

People who don't have credit cards?

I just bought YNAB for $29.99, because the lowest it's ever going to go is another $15, and who knows when that will be? Summer? December?

I'm taking a "take your time but hurry up" approach to learning to track and plan everything. I've gathered so far that since it's really only dealing with the money you have right now, that even though I have bills I know I will pay later this month, and paychecks I know I will get, that I should just wait on entering them until they are actually paid/in my account?

I have to make one massive student loan payment next month to get current with that, but otherwise I should get to the point of being one month ahead sometime in April.

Old Fart
Jul 25, 2013
How do y'all handle pre-paycheck contributions to retirement funds or stock purchase plans?

These are off-budget accounts, yes?

Do you add it as income in an on-budget account and then immediately transfer it? That seems convoluted. And if I go by my financial transactions, it doesn't split off my contribution and my employer's contribution, merely the total.

What do other people do? In the end, the total value will be the same, I'm just wondering the best way to track it.

londonmoose
Mar 22, 2011
I would do everything as separate transactions. Since the take-home pay from your paycheck is the only money that you see in terms of what reaches your current account, have that as a single transaction going in there. Then, for any money that goes from the paycheck into various off-budget accounts, make separate incoming transactions within each off-budget account. Since they're off-budget this money doesn't get classified as anything, but is simply money that exists in those various accounts (so you can track it). If you ever were to draw money from those accounts, when you move that money into an on-budget account (i.e. your current account) you then have to categorise as income and it becomes available to budget.

I essentially thought about it in terms on what the money actually does in terms of movement. You don't get your entire paycheck deposited into your current account, and then have whatever amounts moving into retirement funds etc.; that money is deducted before it ever reaches your account. Therefore splitting the transaction coming into your current account doesn't make sense for me, because they seem like seperate transactions, even if they technically share the same "source" (your employer)

I hope this makes sense. I'm fairly new to YNAB myself, but that's what I understand of how it's supposed to work, and this is how I would do it. I even just tested out doing it with a split, but couldn't get it to work so although it might be more work entering multiple transactions every paycheck, it might end up easier.

e: To be clear; this is what I mean. These are all single, separate transactions, no splits.

On-budget current account: Category = Income for MONTH; Amount = Deposited take-home pay (e.g. £1600)
Off-budget retirement fund: Uncategorised; Amount = Retirement deduction (e.g. £160)
Off-budget stock purchase: Uncategorised: Amount = Stock purchase deduction (e.g. £50)
etc, etc.


e2: Just got the split method to work, but it seems really counter-intuitive to me, because you end up working backwards, in a way, and again you're dealing with money that's never actually in your account, so it seems weird to treat it as such. Using the same figures as above, this is how I did it (ignore the misc category, I didn't bother creating new budget categories for this.):




VVVVVVVV - yeah, you basically summed all of what I was trying to say in a much better way. As I said, I'm still new to the program myself, so I enjoy discussions/solving problems like this

londonmoose fucked around with this message at 18:02 on Feb 6, 2014

LogisticEarth
Mar 28, 2004

Someone once told me, "Time is a flat circle".
For the scope of YNAB, I just deal with my final take-home pay (i.e. what actually makes it to the bank account) and just have my retirement funds as off budget accounts that I manually update quarterly. They're really only there as net worth contributors.

I suppose you could make a line item for benefits like health insurance, you'd just have to add that to monthly income, even though it never goes into an account though. That could get tricky, and might be better handled as a desperate spreadsheet.

Old Fart
Jul 25, 2013
Thanks folks. I'm honestly not sure what of this is pre-tax or post-tax, since i'm new to Canada, but I have two accounts: an employee pension, and a stock purchase plan. It was only a couple of weeks ago that I even bothered to look any of it up for the first time. Out of sight out of mind.

I did what you said, just marked it as inflow. Going through the pension plan, the online statement showed contributions and investment gains, so that was pretty easy to do.

The stock purchase is a bit more complicated, as it only shows contributions and purchases, not investment changes. I can manually pull up monthly statements which give market value, and using YNAB's search function and transaction entry calculator, it's been relatively easy to type in the market value total from the statement and subtract the search total from YNAB, in order to have a monthly line item for the market value change.

I realize these aren't crucial to the budget, but as we start to plan our family and future more carefully, it's nice to have this information at the ready. It also helps the net worth graph look prettier. :) I also figure it couldn't hurt for reconciling numbers when I do taxes.

Old Fart
Jul 25, 2013
While we're on the subject of taxes... how do you categorize that? Would a refund show it as income from your employer? Just have a special TaxMan Payee? My OCD-lite twitches a bit, since technically there's been a TaxMan Payee every month, but I think breaking all that down is getting too crazy, especially considering all the contribution summaries are on paystubs and tax forms.

Tayter Swift
Nov 18, 2002

Pillbug
I'm just throwing my refund under income for whatever month I get it. Speaking of which my refund from California already dropped this morning. Whoa.

Breaking down taxes month by month makes no sense to me in the context of a budget. It's money that was taken out before it got to you so in a sense it was never income at all. I consider all paycheck withholdings off-budget.

crimedog
Apr 1, 2008

Yo, dog.
You dead, dog.
Yeah, you guys are crazy. I do net income for on-budget and reconcile only for off-budget.

crimedog fucked around with this message at 18:43 on Feb 6, 2014

DrBouvenstein
Feb 28, 2007

I think I'm a doctor, but that doesn't make me a doctor. This fancy avatar does.
I still don't like how YNAB works with pre-existing CC debt.

I WANT to make a budget item to account for what I'm paying off. Their system of "just categorize the purchase in its category and do a account transfer when the bill is due" really only works when you come in with zero debt, and don't ever keep a monthly balance. I'ts not great for pre-existing debt you're slowly trying to pay off.

For the past month or so, I stopped using my CCs to bring down their balance, and scrimped on discretionary purchases. I've only used my debit card so I have ab etter idea of how much things are "costing" me. It was getting to easy to say,
"Oh, well it's on the CC, worry about it later!"

It would be handy to right in,
"Pay $500 to Discover" and "Pay $300 to Chase" in the transfers when I pay them, but if you try to categorize a transfer it yells at you and doesn't let you keep it that way. So I guess you have to make it two transactions. Make the budget item, and then when I pay the bill just write in the amount paid to "zero out" the budget category, and then do the balance transfer.

Just seems like an unnecessary step.

gariig
Dec 31, 2004
Beaten into submission by my fiance
Pillbug
For YNAB I consider it my net worth of money I could reasonably spend tomorrow. I'm probably not going to raid my long term investments (401K, IRA, CDs) to pay for something tomorrow. I would just keep track of your long term investments by just looking at them monthly/quarterly/yearly and not bother recording them in YNAB. If you suddenly have a great year on your 401K does that change your monthly budget? If you are putting your left over budgeted money into a long term investment I would just consider it an outflow and it's money lost.

For credit cards with a balance the Handling Credit Cards video says how to handle interest payments on credit cards. It does seem really strange. If I had to guess the credit card payment to YNAB is just shuffling money around even though in the real world it's a loss of cash to you.

gariig fucked around with this message at 19:37 on Feb 6, 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

DrBouvenstein posted:

I still don't like how YNAB works with pre-existing CC debt.

I might be misunderstanding; but the point of the Pre-YNAB debt category is that it doesn't have a purpose in your current budget: it's just a negative lump of money that you owe the issuer. All you need to do every month is budget to reduce this outstanding category by X amount, plus anything you put on the card in the meantime from your budgeted expenses.

So on your card statement for February you might have:

-500 outstanding card balance (pre-YNAB debt)
-150 groceries
Total balance: -650

You budgeted that 150's worth of groceries, and also 100 is budgeted to reduce the outstanding balance. Therefore, you make payment of 250 to your card issuer. As it's 'spent' in your budget anyway, all you do then is transfer 250 from your bank account to the card account in YNAB - the CC account then updates to reflect the new value of 400, and vice versa with your main bank account. You don't need to categorise the transfer or anything, maybe just enter the date of the transaction in the Memo field.

lament.cfg
Dec 28, 2006

we have such posts
to show you




I don't totally understand (because I only skimmed) the post, but if you feel the need to write "Paid $300 to Chase" in the memo field of a $300 transaction to your Chase account, you're doing something wrong.

DrBouvenstein
Feb 28, 2007

I think I'm a doctor, but that doesn't make me a doctor. This fancy avatar does.

Me in Reverse posted:

I don't totally understand (because I only skimmed) the post, but if you feel the need to write "Paid $300 to Chase" in the memo field of a $300 transaction to your Chase account, you're doing something wrong.

It's not so I can remember what the transaction/transfer is for, it's just because having to make two separate entries for one payment is annoying.

spincube posted:

You budgeted that 150's worth of groceries, and also 100 is budgeted to reduce the outstanding balance. Therefore, you make payment of 250 to your card issuer. As it's 'spent' in your budget anyway, all you do then is transfer 250 from your bank account to the card account in YNAB - the CC account then updates to reflect the new value of 400, and vice versa with your main bank account. You don't need to categorise the transfer or anything, maybe just enter the date of the transaction in the Memo field.

Right...we're on the same page here, but I'm just annoyed slightly I have to do this:


I don't see why I can't say that the transfer is ALSO a budget item. Because it IS. None of my current Visa debt is associated with ANY of my purchases/budget categories since using YNAB, so it's not like I'd be "budgeting it twice" like if I bought some groceries and other already budgeted items with it. To accurately plan my money and spending accordingly, I need a budget item for my credit card debt. It'd just be easier to make one line item to take care of it rather than two.

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

DrBouvenstein posted:

It's not so I can remember what the transaction/transfer is for, it's just because having to make two separate entries for one payment is annoying.


Right...we're on the same page here, but I'm just annoyed slightly I have to do this:


I don't see why I can't say that the transfer is ALSO a budget item. Because it IS. None of my current Visa debt is associated with ANY of my purchases/budget categories since using YNAB, so it's not like I'd be "budgeting it twice" like if I bought some groceries and other already budgeted items with it. To accurately plan my money and spending accordingly, I need a budget item for my credit card debt. It'd just be easier to make one line item to take care of it rather than two.

Are you using the ability to carry over your balances?

If you look what was being done here:



I basically had a bunch of money has pre-YNAB debt. over time, I would budget $X amount to repaying my debt and then repay that debt. The money is pretty much spent when you register it on your budget, particularly for pre-YNAB debt. You shouldn't have to double register a debt repayment if you're doing it correctly.

Its a bit more thorough here:

http://www.youneedabudget.com/support/article/credit-card-payments

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

DrBouvenstein posted:

It's not so I can remember what the transaction/transfer is for, it's just because having to make two separate entries for one payment is annoying.

For credit cards with a balance the Handling Credit Cards video says how to handle interest payments on credit cards. Like Shadowhand00 posted you shouldn't be double posting. You'll budget some cash to just paying your CC plus your normal expenses and then transfer that money to you credit card. Later add the interest back in as pre-YNAB debt. The video goes over the whole process even if you start carrying debt later.

DrBouvenstein
Feb 28, 2007

I think I'm a doctor, but that doesn't make me a doctor. This fancy avatar does.

Shadowhand00 posted:

Are you using the ability to carry over your balances?

If you look what was being done here:



I basically had a bunch of money has pre-YNAB debt. over time, I would budget $X amount to repaying my debt and then repay that debt. The money is pretty much spent when you register it on your budget, particularly for pre-YNAB debt. You shouldn't have to double register a debt repayment if you're doing it correctly.

Its a bit more thorough here:

http://www.youneedabudget.com/support/article/credit-card-payments

Ahhh, ok, I see now. I didn't realize the "pre-YNAB Debt" areas were meant to have a budget in them...I guess now it should have been obvious.

However, after doing this...the "balance" in the budget area of my pre-YNAB does not equal the actual card balances, except for one:


It seems the couple transactions I had on the Visa doesn't change the "Balance" in the Pre-YNAB area. Shouldn't the charges show up there?
Here's the transactions on that Visa (I was incorrect saying I didn't use them at all)


So going back to that first image of the budget...the only thing that affects the Pre-YNAB debt is the initial amount, and the interest. The three purchases aren't there. I went through and marked them all "cleared," but that didn't change anything. It still shows that I have a "positive" balance of $29.73 on the Visa. The balance showing on the left hand side is correct, I still owe $36.94 on it (that reason for the random sized payment is because that was the balance my last statement.)

How do I fix this? Maybe that video on credit cards explains it, but I'm at work and cant' watch a freakin' 1-hour long video right now.

100 HOGS AGREE
Oct 13, 2007
Grimey Drawer
The new purchases don't get added to Pre-YNAB debt because they are not pre-YNAB debt. They are post-YNAB transactions.

View that balance aws how much you still owe to get your debt down to zero beyond any of the transactions you add now that should come out of your budget categories and already be accounted for in your (they should be easily paid off every month because you're only budgeting with money you have now, right?).

Don't allocate the total amount of your credit card payments in Pre-YNAB debt, just the amount you are paying beyond the transactions you've already accounted for in your budget in other categories.

100 HOGS AGREE fucked around with this message at 22:02 on Feb 6, 2014

LogisticEarth
Mar 28, 2004

Someone once told me, "Time is a flat circle".
Transactions you log on the card after you started using YNAB don't get added to the "pre-YNAB Debt" category. They just get added to the card's balance. Since you've already budgeted money in other categories for the new card transactions, you would be double counting if you also assigned more money again in the debt item.

100 HOGS AGREE
Oct 13, 2007
Grimey Drawer
Frankly I'd just stop using the credit cards, unless you absolutely have to, until you pay them off and make everything that much simpler.

Any rewards or whatever you're getting probably isn't going to match the interest you're accruing every month anyway, so just use your debt card for a while or something.

Old Fart
Jul 25, 2013
FWIW, I found the pre-YNAB debt thing to be confusing at first, too. Don't let it get you down. Once you push through, it all works really well.

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

DrBouvenstein posted:

Ahhh, ok, I see now. I didn't realize the "pre-YNAB Debt" areas were meant to have a budget in them...I guess now it should have been obvious.

However, after doing this...the "balance" in the budget area of my pre-YNAB does not equal the actual card balances, except for one:


It seems the couple transactions I had on the Visa doesn't change the "Balance" in the Pre-YNAB area. Shouldn't the charges show up there?
Here's the transactions on that Visa (I was incorrect saying I didn't use them at all)


So going back to that first image of the budget...the only thing that affects the Pre-YNAB debt is the initial amount, and the interest. The three purchases aren't there. I went through and marked them all "cleared," but that didn't change anything. It still shows that I have a "positive" balance of $29.73 on the Visa. The balance showing on the left hand side is correct, I still owe $36.94 on it (that reason for the random sized payment is because that was the balance my last statement.)

How do I fix this? Maybe that video on credit cards explains it, but I'm at work and cant' watch a freakin' 1-hour long video right now.

You're getting there. The others have explained it pretty well. Power through :)

What really helps with YNAB is to take their seminars. They're all very helpful and really get you into a good mindset for learning the software/budgeting rules.

SiGmA_X
May 3, 2004
SiGmA_X
IMO, track your retirement contributions like this and mark-to-market the accounts quarterly. Super easy, and it gives you an accurate picture of how much money you're putting aside.

londonmoose
Mar 22, 2011
Agreed, although personally I would make them all as separate transactions (as I posted earlier). Even though it involves creating several transactions every paycheck, it seems easier to me, and is more accurate in terms of what your money is actually doing. I just posted how to do it as a single transaction with splits as I was trying to figure out personally how it would work (I used to use GnuCash, and that handled splits slightly differently, so it was more an exercise of figuring out the differences in the YNAB interface).

But yeah, people should go with whatever works best for them. For off-budget accounts, like retirement fund/investments, doing a monthly/quarterly reconcile is all that's needed to stay up to date.

Old Fart
Jul 25, 2013
These are off-budget accounts, but doing an income split would require reconciling every paycheck, or at least going through every stub from time to time. It's an interesting idea, and certainly looks sexy.

SiGmA_X
May 3, 2004
SiGmA_X
I look at every stub, I've done it since I had my first job. I also track every line in Quicken, so tracking LESS in YNAB feels super weird.

I wouldn't argue that someone HAS TO do it my way though, it's simply a way I've found to work really well, as I'm not about to not track retirement savings. Maybe someday, but I haven't hit that day yet! If anything I track more vs less now!

I think a plus to YNAB is there is a lot of flexibility, like with Pre-YNAB Debt and how you can track interest any way you want to, really.

Oh, finally got my gf to reconcile her account for January a week ago and set a budget for her late-Jan paycheck. She did so happily, huge improvement! And she said she's going to update again tonight (paid yesterday) and plan her next 2 week budget. Yay for YNAB! And maybe yay for Quicken, I think it's more confusing so she really hated it, and YNAB seemed super easy so she's using it now!

Wizardryo
Jul 23, 2002

"Finally! A deep throat to call my own!"
How do you guys track cash? The YNAB FAQ suggests either making a Cash account and tracking everything or setting up a black box-esque "Cash" category. I'm undecided on the pros and cons of both. For what it's worth, I stick to cards for most everything but do use cash for tipping at bars/restaurants and for taxis. Is it worth all the hassle to keep track of smaller $1-5 cash exchanges here and there outside of the initial ATM withdrawal/cash back? I'm thinking of things like spotting a coworker a few dollars or getting a drink from the vending machine.

londonmoose
Mar 22, 2011
The main advantage of using a cash account and tracking each transaction is that it fits in with the rest of your budget and provides you with the information you need to help manage your spending. If you just have $200 in "cash expenses" tracked, you don't know how much went in to discretionary spending, how much of it was important, etc. If you're trying to cut down on restaurant spending, for example, but don't know how much cash you actually spend on restaurants, it becomes a lot more difficult.

Personally, I track every individual transaction, and the YNAB mobile app makes it really easy. This is even more the case if you don't even use cash that much - if it's just a few transactions, even if they are small and seem insignificant, surely it wouldn't even be that much of a hassle? I still use cash quite a bit (I'm in the UK, which seems like it is a bit more cash based than the US) and I manage fine.

(this next bit is cross-posted from my post in the "How to Budget" thread)

The other thing that I do is round up each transaction to the nearest £. So whether I am spending £1.05 or £1.95 in a transaction, it gets entered in at £2. Even if I get change and then spend it right away on something else, it always gets rounded up. Then, any change smaller than 50p gets put in a jar at the end of the day. This does several things for me:

1. Although I am overestimating how much cash I've spent, I'm still maintaining a reasonably accurate record of where my cash goes, and my budgets have got enough of a buffer in them that this overestimation doesn't cause me to record overspending. As a result, my YNAB cash balance is often quite a bit lower than the actual cash I still have in my wallet. This then gives me a little buffer in my cash account that helps me cover the occasional transaction that I do forget to enter, which is nice.

2. At the end of each month I reconcile the YNAB balance with my actual cash-in-wallet balance, which usually results as an inflow for that month, which then immediately gets budgeted towards my savings. It's not a lot (maybe £5-10 a month), but it does help.

3. Every now and again, I will also take my full coin jar to the bank and deposit it, which also goes straight into savings. So essentially, I not only manage to track my cash spending fairly accurately, I ensure that any cash money that is left over gets put straight into savings rather than just spent on whatever.

This is my method, although I tend to lean towards micromanaging my budgets (enter all transactions as soon as they occur, have lots of different categories), which isn't necessarily for anyone. If tracking cash this way does get too cumbersome for you, by all means do something that's easier and works for you. Tracking individual cash transactions is often considered "best practice" but ultimately what's most important is you sticking with the process as a whole and keeping up with the budgeting.

Cuddlebottom
Feb 17, 2004

Butt dance.
I've got a similar approach to londonmoose. I track cash in an on-budget account. I only track paper bills, essentially - everything is rounded up to whole dollar amounts ($1.01 -> $2.00), but anything I spent with loose change is ignored. That makes it really easy to spend 30 seconds counting the bills in my wallet when things are out of sync.

I find it helpful because cash tends to disappear from my wallet and this keeps me honest. I doesn't take to long to log the $1 I spent on a snack or whatever. The only problem I had was almost overdrawing an account, since I was looking at my total YNAB balance, instead of my checking balance.

Tayter Swift
Nov 18, 2002

Pillbug
As a counterpoint I go the opposite route, with a separate expense category for Pocket Change. I generally give myself $40 cash (usually cash back from grocery shopping) at the beginning of the week and consider that gone as far as YNAB's concerned, and don't track its spending. It generally goes to coffee or lunch during the work week.

Suspicious Lump
Mar 11, 2004
How do you reconcile? What does it actually do? Ive been using YNAB for ages now but I never stick to it. I still save a lot but I really want to track every single dollar to see where my money is going. What usually happens is either my actual balance is more than YNAB balance or vis versa. So I usually make a fresh start.

LogisticEarth
Mar 28, 2004

Someone once told me, "Time is a flat circle".

Suspicious Lump posted:

How do you reconcile? What does it actually do? Ive been using YNAB for ages now but I never stick to it. I still save a lot but I really want to track every single dollar to see where my money is going. What usually happens is either my actual balance is more than YNAB balance or vis versa. So I usually make a fresh start.

Basically, you take your bank and credit card statements, plug in the cleared balance on the statement at the date it was issued, and then figure out where the difference comes from by going through the transactions. It's not really meant to be done up to the moment, but to double check your accounting by comparing YNAB's values versus the official amounts from your bank.

londonmoose
Mar 22, 2011
Reconciling is making sure that your YNAB record matches reality. For your bank accounts, you do this by comparing your bank statement(s) with your YNAB transaction list.

In YNAB's reconcile mode, enter the date and amount shown on your statement. Then go through the statement one transaction at a time. If it shows up on YNAB and the amounts match, cross it off the statement and mark it cleared in YNAB. Continue until you've crossed off the entire statement. If you recorded everything correctly, the amount in YNAB should match that on the statement and you can end the process. If there's a discrepancy, YNAB will tell you about it and what the difference is.

Discrepancies are often caused by transactions you've forgotten to enter in YNAB, so at this point double-check that you've not missed anything from the statement. If everything is there, it might be a typo that you made when you first entered the transaction. These are a bit more annoying to find, but YNAB does tell you the amount it is off by, which can be helpful. It's a good idea to do a reconcile every now again (monthly is good) to make sure that there are no mistakes in your YNAB transaction list.

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Old Fart
Jul 25, 2013
Much of my pay is in cash, so I keep a cash account. I used to do a lot of my spending in cash, and also rounded up. I felt that cash kept me more honest, while plastic was easily swiped. Plus I liked watching the cabs build up on the shelf. Hundred dolla bills, y'all. I was terrified of breaking the plastic seal.

These days, with budgeting under far more control, I find debit/credit to be easier. I don't enter transactions as they happen, I just reconcile once a week. If I'm making an unusual purchase, I just check the budget to see if it's manageable. Also, our budget is pretty flexible. We do our savings goals first, and the rest can shift as needed without too much stress.

Cash is mostly for personal spending money, and I don't track that, just note that I took $80 or whatever. And these days I don't even do much of that any more. Shifting priorities. It's also for the occasional outflow that can't be plastic. Taxi, tip for the movers, etc.

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