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Started using YNAB, it’s my first budgeting app and I feel like I’m already messing things up. I have a target to pay off a certain amount of CC debt per month. In addition, whenever I use my CC I transfer money from my checking account to pay off whatever I bought. This results in the original CC payment being categorized into whatever category it should go, like hobbies, AND the checking payment is categorized under the monthly CC payment category. This results in basically money getting taken out twice of my “ready to assign” money. This means I can’t trust any of the numbers I see… so what’s the point of this app if it can’t handle this?
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Jan 20, 2024 20:26
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| # ¿ May 17, 2024 08:02 |
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I might be! The way I see it, a CC transaction has three parts represented in YNAB: - The initial CC charge (let’s say -100) - The payment from checking (-100) - The checking payment going into the CC account (+100) I think my confusion comes from the idea that every transaction needs to be put into a category. The initial CC charge can go into whatever category it’s actually for (Hobbies,Groceries,etc.) . But where should the other two go? The closest I have is the CC Payment category, but that’s supposed to be for monthly payments to the debt, not for transactions like this. And then, if I do put the later two transactions into the CC Payment category, then the app asks me to put 100 more into the category I put the initial payment into. But that makes no sense because the money to cover that payment is already used and done, I don’t need to cover it.
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Jan 20, 2024 20:47
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When I try to do that, I get this big yellow alert that says "UNCATEGORIZED TRANSACTIONS", and points to them. Which indicates to me that I'm doing something wrong?
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Jan 20, 2024 22:47
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Boris Galerkin posted:When you added your credit card account YNAB will have created a category for that credit card payment. When you make that transaction for candles, YNAB will automatically move money from candles to the credit card payment. If you want to pay extra money towards the credit card, like if you had existing debt on it, then you budget money directly to that credit card payment category. So from my experience, what I feel like what happens is that I put the initial CC transaction in candles, then I log the checking payment to CC into the CC Payment category. It then asks me to fund the CC Payment category… but I’ve also funded the candles category. I’m now funding the same $100 transaction twice, resulting in YNAB’s perception of my available balance being off. Am I seeing this wrong?
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Jan 21, 2024 00:08
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Thanks for all the help everyone! I feel dumb, because there's still something I'm not getting here. Take this as an example... I have a small savings account (not my actual savings, this was one with a very low APY that pretty much just came with my checking account). I decide to make a CC Payment, not attached to anything specific, just a payment against outstanding debt, of $20. I go to the +20 transaction on my CC Credit, and file it under the CC Payment category. This then correctly identifies the -20 on the savings account as the "Sending money to the CC" part of the transaction, which is good. But now in my CC Payment category, it is asking me to cover the -$20 by moving some kind of money to it -- this is part I don't get. I should not have to move any money to cover this, the money went from Savings to the CC so it should balance out, right? I don't see why I would need to pull money from my checking to "pay" for a movement of money that is already covered. Apologies if this example is wildly different than the one before, but it speaks to my main problem -- whenever I try to log a CC Payment, I wind up with YNAB seemingly asking my to cover the payment again when I feel like the transaction history should prove out that I already did by moving money into the CC in the first place.
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Jan 21, 2024 19:17
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OK, here's an example, on a new budget I created (but some settings and such from my original budget moved over, so I'm blacking that all out). In this budget, I have created a $20 CC transaction for "Hobbies", and paid it off via a checking transfer to the CC. Here's what those actions look like: CC: The $20 hobby payment and the transaction from Checking to the CC to pay it off:  Checking: The $20 payment to the CC  Now here's my budget... both the CC Payment and Hobbies categories ask me to move $20 into each.  If I just click on those two categories and add 20 to each, my 'Ready To Assign' goes down by 40 I believe, which is not what I want. I get moving 20 into Hobbies, to represent that I spent 20 on hobbies. I also sorta understand the CC Payment category, in that it is asking me to pay off my CC by a certain date, and any transaction on the CC, left unpaid, builds extra debt, and therefore needs to be covered to keep everything on track. But things just don't add up right.
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Jan 21, 2024 23:01
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| # ¿ May 17, 2024 08:02 |
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I think I see what you mean -- by covering the 20 in the hobbies category, the -20 in the CC Payment category went away as well. I thought for sure I've seen it where covering the non-CC category still left the CC category in the negative, but maybe in those cases I didn't enter something in correctly?Boris Galerkin posted:Just to be clear when you say this, you actually paid $20 to the credit card company? Like you went into your cc app and did a payment transfer for $20? To answer this, essentially yes. I used my CC to buy something, then went into my banking app to move 20 form checking to CC. Then once those transactions appear in YNAB, I attempt to properly categorize them to get them budgeted.
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Jan 22, 2024 01:24
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