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SpaceCadetBob posted:I do however agree with the above point about the auto-sync of bank data to be a huge crutch and an unfortunate development. Sitting down every month and going through all your statements and reconciling gives a person a ton of understanding over their finances. However I'm sure they weighed that against how many people were getting to that first reconcile sitdown, and then just giving up 30 minutes later out of frustration and dropping out all together. On the other hand, the quickest way to make YNAB useless is to not have it up-to-date with your actual spending. If the idea is always 'you spend what's in the budget, not what's in the bank,' and your budget doesn't accurately reflect that you've already spent 25 of your 50 dollars in 'eating out,' you might as well not have a budget. Yes, the BEST way is to religiously enter every transaction on your phone right then and there, or barring that, do it nightly, but on the other hand, all that this does is eliminate a single stop in the 'download transactions from bank, match to your manual entries, classify any that you missed or didn't enter.' And I don't get why people would float an overbudget for reimbursable expenses, as that seems exactly contrary to YNAB's philosophy. Seems to me that what you should do is cover the expenses, then assign the reimbursement as new income. If you have regular expenses on such things, you'd probably want to build up a buffer for it.
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Dec 30, 2015 18:43
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Sockser posted:Just got my first paycheck of the year Keep putting some excess into an emergency fund, and a slush fund.
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Jan 9, 2016 02:05
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mrmcd posted:Specifically setting aside the Rule 4 goal, you can actually set income transactions for the future. I.e. if you know your paycheck in 3 weeks is going to be $2500, you can go ahead and manually enter that in the register for a future date and categorize it as income for whatever income month system you're using (current or next) and it will show up in your budget. Then when the actual transaction hits your account (you get paid) you can just match it and/or adjust the real amount. This violates the philosophy of only budget money you have.
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Jan 9, 2016 19:46
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you ate my cat posted:That... actually makes a lot of sense. Something clicked and now I feel like I get the whole YNAB system a lot better. I went back and unfunded the lowest priority stuff, and now I'm budgeted to zero. Thanks guys. If you haven't, do the training webinars. They really help get the philosophy across. But the gist is: deposit a cheque. Budget every cent of that cheque, no more, no less.
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Jan 11, 2016 04:15
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Ckwiesr posted:So I started using YNAB at the end of last month but I think I may have incorrectly interpreted how the savings part works. Am I correct in assuming that, unlike a bill like rent (which will have an outflow from my checking account reducing the balance to zero when I pay / input the transaction into YNAB), under savings categories there is no outflow, and you only put the amount you wish to have in that category under budgeted? After that you do a transfer (if the money is in checkings) to my savings account (both in YNAB and at the bank)? If you have a separate account for savings, do this: Say you have a chequing account with 500 bux, and a savings account with 500 bux. You set up your two accounts, and put in their start value. You now have 1000 bux to budget. Set up a category under 'long term goals' or whatever it is. Call it 'Savings - Separate Account' or something. Budget 500 bux into that account. This now reflects that you have 500 bux in your savings account, not for spending. Budget the rest of the money as usual. Deposit new money into the chequing account. Budget as normal. If you want to put some of it in savings, say 100 bux, budget an extra 100 bux into your 'Savings - Separate Account' category, then enter a 'transfer' in YNAB from chequing to savings of 100 bux, and make sure you actually go to your bank's website or whatever and perform the transfer. TL;DR: just make sure your savings account balance and your 'Savings - Separate Account' budget entry always match.
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Jan 14, 2016 15:58
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Defenestration posted:wait what? When I pay off my credit card I do a Transfer between my bank and my credit card accounts. Almost all my spending is on card so it's already logged. Well with 4, you set up your card with a preexisting balance. Then if you pay it down, you budget money to it. You've spent money then budgeted for it, same as overspending in, say, the restaurant category and moving some cash into the budget from another category. As you say, spending budgeted money on a card, it's just a transfer. Though "pre ynab debt" should be called "carried debt" or something.
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Jan 28, 2016 13:19
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tyler is a joke posted:I wonder if folks could give me their thoughts on on budget savings accounts. Put that poo poo on budget. Two reasons. One: how else are you going to track it? It's money you have, you need to know how much it is, what it's doing, how much is available in an emergency, all that stuff. Two: one of the main draws of software like this is going to the 'net worth' report and watching it grow and grow and grow. YNAB doesn't intend to, but winds up, gamifying your budget. So keep score! The other 'holy poo poo, I'm awesome' thing for me is looking back through your credit card transactions and seeing absolutely no 'debit: interest paid' entries. That's like a huge middle finger to the CC companies, an amazing testament to your newfound skills at not paying somebody else for the privilege of spending money, and will make you feel drat good.
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Feb 21, 2016 22:08
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Irritated Goat posted:Ok. I want to be sure I'm thinking about this right. Math and I don't get along very well so occasionally I have weird ideas on how things work. Your bank account should equal everything you've budgeted out, but not yet spent. So, if you've budgeted: $100 for groceries $50 for gas $100 for cat grooming $50 for car repair $100 for bondage equipment and you've spent $25 on groceries $10 o gas $0 on cat grooming (you don't actually own a cat) $25 for car repair $100 for bondage equipment your bank account should have: $75 on unspent groceries $50 on unspent gas $100 on cat grooming $25 car repair $0 for bondage equipment equals a bank account of $250. If your bank account does not contain $250, either you've spent money and not told YNAB about it, or you've told YNAB you have money you don't actually have.
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Mar 8, 2016 20:52
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you ate my cat posted:I had a very similar experience to that when I first started using it, then one day it just suddenly clicked with me. I think the piece I wasn't understanding is that 'being saved' is as much a job for my money to be doing as paying rent or bills. All the money in both of my savings accounts is currently budgeted for savings, and if I were going to transfer more money to them then the only thing I would do is add the transfer transaction. The job is the same, and there's no outflow on the actual budget. It really does help to think of budget categories as envelopes. You label one envelope as 'Cable bill - 50 bux - 15th' and you know that you need to put 50 bux in there before the 15th, and that on the 15th, 50 bux are going to magically disappear out of that envelope. Well, have an envelope labelled 'long term savings - do not spend!' and start stuffing money into that envelope, and watch as it gets fatter and fatter.
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Mar 15, 2016 21:41
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You don't. Ynab isn't for asset tracking, it's for tracking cash flow. 
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Apr 12, 2016 11:50
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Good for you!
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Apr 30, 2016 15:23
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When I withdraw cash, I just budget it to whatever category is most applicable. Straight outflow.
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Aug 1, 2016 02:55
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I've been using various software for at least 17 years; I remember using MS Money and a third-party app on my Palm Vx for mobile receipt entry. Most recently Moneydance. They're all good for not going negative at the end of the month. YNAB keeps you positive and growing, if you use it right. Hands down best software I've used for budgeting. I wish I'd had it from the start.
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Sep 23, 2016 16:23
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El Mero Mero posted:Yeah, the toolkit is so robust that the actual nYNAB folks should be embarrassed that some dude in his spare time is blowing them out of the water re:features and functionality. Or hiring him.
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Sep 24, 2016 16:29
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Truth. The idea behind ynab is that you don't spend money you don't have. Spending money this month that you won't have till next month is the definition of this. Ynab wants you to budget money you have towards the work expense, then budget your reimbursement towards whatever. If work expenses are fairly common, you should be budgeting for them regularly, and rebuilding the budgeting with reimbursements. Or get a company credit card. But the fact is that if you have one hundo in your account, and you spend 10 on work stuff that you'll get back next month, you now have 90 dollars, not 90 dollars plus 10 quantum future dollars. Ynab is big on "never budget future income" for this reason too.
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Oct 16, 2016 14:34
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anitsirK posted:Mostly because unless the house actually sells, I have only the vaguest idea what it's worth. And I don't really consider myself debt-free until I have more cash (or savings) than I owe. Maybe an account where you track your equity in the mortgage?
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Dec 22, 2016 13:21
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That all said, YNAB is pretty explicitly designed and intended for use as a cash flow manager and budget manager, not an asset tracker or Personal Finance manager. It ain't Quickbooks, Microsoft Money, Moneydance, or anything other full-on accounting type software. Sure, you can kinda/sorta make it be one, just bear in mind you're banging a nail in with a screwdriver. I'll tell you though, after at least fifteen years of using various software, back to Microsoft Money with some Palm Pilot app for entering receipts on the go, YNAB is the first one that actually 'works' and lets me get and stay ahead of things, rather than just avoiding going below zero on any given month.
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Dec 22, 2016 20:48
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Does oldYNAB, or newYNAB, have any sort of transaction log for budgeting? Like: 2017-01-01 9:00 AM - 1000 bux inflow 2017-01-01 9:30 AM - 500 unassigned bux allocated to Groceries 2017-01-01 9:30 AM - 200 unassigned bux allocated to Booze 2017-01-01 9:30 AM - 100 unassigned bux allocated to Cable and Internet 2017-01-01 9:30 AM - 200 unassigned bux allocated to Savings 2017-01-02 9:00 AM - 50 bux unallocated from Groceries 2017-01-02 9:00 AM - 50 unassigned bux allocated to Restaurants YNAB shows you your spending, but I can think of times when it might be interesting to see how you're shuffling around your budget, you know?
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Jan 18, 2017 15:48
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If you're carrying over a negative balance, you're spending money this month you won't have until next month, yeah? Now, there are situations where this is right and proper, in real life if not in theory. For a personal example, getting the kid's wisdom teeth pulled, paying for it on CC and knowing that the insurance reimbursement will be direct deposited in one week, and it happens to fall on the end of the month boundary. Sure, the "right" way to do that would be to budget it all now, and budget the reimbursement to other stuff when it comes in. Even prerecording the reimbursement , even if you know exactly the amount and date, is contrary to the YNAB philosophy.
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Feb 8, 2017 14:51
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Do you also try to peddle bicycles with your hands, then complain how horribly they work unless you use as intended, so dehumanizing, like it's the master telling you, a human being with agency and free will, what to do?
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Apr 17, 2017 12:54
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Potato Salad posted:I did, in fact, once sell a bicycle with my hands, no intermediaries involved with the transaction. Argh. S/peddle/pedal. Dammit. The point still stands. That said, I still use ynab 4 due to preferring the workflow and what not. But I don't bitch when the software works as envisioned. If you want your own free form budget that works how you want, when you want, use a spreadsheet b
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Apr 17, 2017 14:37
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I have scheduled transactions so I can see at a glance what's supposed to come out, have any changes or discrepancies shoved in my face, and have the available budget for the bills in question more accurately reflect what's unspent vs building up when the bank or auto withdrawl winds up being five days later due to bank computers being treated like old fashioned paper ledgers and not updating in a timely fashion.
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Apr 28, 2017 14:43
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epenthesis posted:I'm not sure I follow. Is the question simply about what number autopopulates if you set your budget using that feature? Because yes, that will use whatever number you used the previous month rather than your usual number. But I don't understand why that would be a problem if you're looking at the numbers afterward, because it'll be permanently back on track as of your next budget. This. I have...four basic types of budget categories. Well, technically five. 1: Fixed monthly bills. I.e. 50 bux a month for auto insurance, and this changes once a year, maybe. 2: Fixed not-monthly bills. I.e. Water tank rental is 150 bux every three months. 3: Fixed monthly amounts. I.e. I always budget 550 bux for groceries. 4: random monthly amounts. I.e. I don't budget towards 'clothes' but if I need to buy some clothes, I move funds from somewhere else. 5, technically: A slush category that leftover goes into, and that I pull out of as needed. Types 1 and 2 you can generally ignore; every month you're going to budget that amount, and every month that amount is going to come out. If you notice a non-zero number at the end of the month, either a payment didn't get made/taken, or the amount has changed, and you need to adjust. Types 3 and 4, you keep an eye on. Maybe you're budgeting 100 bux a week for groceries, but there's some great sales, you wind up having lots of left overs, and you find yourself with a 100 bux surplus. Decide what to do with that. Let it ride? Don't budget a hundred bux next week and use what's already there? Pull it out and reallocate it? Maybe you notice that despite not budgeting any money towards clothes, you wind up spending 250 bux a year on new socks and underwear. So you start budgeting 20 bux a month towards clothes, knowing that you're going to wind up spending it. This 'look over the previous twelve month's spending' is where this poo poo really starts to shine. My electricity bill is low in the winter, and high in the summer, due to a/c. They don't offer equal billing, or I haven't bothered to check. But, I can take last year's total electrical bill, add ten percent, divide by 12, and I know what I need to budget per month. January to June, I'm building up a surplus. June to October or so, I'm spending that surplus. Then I'm building it up. But it's a lot more manageable and smart to be always budgeting, say, 150 buxs a month to electricity than to be bugeting 100 bux a month for half the year, then 200 for several months. I make a note for the budget line of when the last time I reconciled; for example, if in Oct 2016 I checked the previous year's spending, added 10%, divided by 12, then in Oct 2017 at the end of the month, I'm going to hopefully have a surplus sitting there I can pull out, recalculate new electrical usage, adjust my monthly budget amount, and move on with my life.
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May 4, 2017 21:05
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Dwight Eisenhower posted:This discussion is super helpful for me at least. What I'm hearing: Monthly payment works for some, but yeah, include a 'lifetime' option that's about the cost of a five-year subscription. I'm pretty happy with YNAB4; I can't think of any new features that it 'needs.' I try very hard to enter each and every transaction on my phone; I've done this since the Palm Pilot days using third party software against Microsoft Money. But the thing for me is, as soon as I wrapped my head around the 'YNAB Way,' my financial situation was revolutionized. The proactive 'assign your money' approach, instead of the classic 'see where your money went' approach is awesome.
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May 12, 2017 15:06
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Yup. YNAB is for tracking monthly spending; it's quite specifically not 'financial management' software like Microsoft Money, QuickBooks, or whatever. YNAB is only for 'paycheque comes in, money goes out, make sure it's going where it needs to.' You can certainly bash things like what you'd like into YNAB; off-budget accounts, whatever. See, as soon as you take that 'college fund' and invest it, it's not 'available money that's allocated towards long-term savings,' so shouldn't be in YNAB. If you can't go out and spend it, right now, YNAB isn't the tool to handle it.
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May 18, 2017 19:28
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There's an update downloading for iOS YNAB app. Says it's in preparation for the new Dropbox API.
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May 22, 2017 13:33
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Yeah, sorry, the first thought that pops into my head is 'anybody who thinks that charging to save their customer's data is a good idea needs to never be in the software business again.' Have a recurring monthly fee, and a 'lifetime' fee that's the equivalent of three to five years of subscription fee, and be done with it.
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May 25, 2017 18:49
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The YNAB 4 mobile app is a payment register, basically. You can see you allocations, but not move them.
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Jun 8, 2017 21:56
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Or rename it to your next short term savings goal. Or use a generic name like "Current Short Term Savings Goal"
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Jun 9, 2017 13:19
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LogisticEarth posted:This may be a common question, but I've been using YNAB4 for several years now and am waiting for it to eventually not work anymore. I pretty much refuse to move to a subscription-based service as 1) that's more money down the drain 2) I loathe the modern state of software/apps where developers roll out new updates and boneheaded UI decisions, making you relearn everything at random 3) I'm also avoiding broswer based stuff. They did just put out an update in the last few weeks for the mobile apps to keep Dropbox integration working, so it's not currently in any more danger of abandonment than any other software generally is, but I do take your point. I don't think there's much out there that does what YNAB does; there's all sorts of software like Quicken and MoneyDance that tracks spending, but doesn't do the proactive budgeting.
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Jun 30, 2017 21:23
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That's similar to what I do. Always budget for, and fund, the full amount, then treat their share as income and put it toward whatever.
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Jul 16, 2017 15:20
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Well either that or put in a fake income of the amount owed, and edit it as the actual payments come in? Maybe even treat it as a split transaction? But no, the proper way would be to accurately account for the fact that you've spent this money, it's out of your bank accounts, then treat the payments as friends as income and use that to cover the money you took from elsewhere.
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Aug 21, 2017 15:50
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FateFree posted:Thanks - I imagine people prefer the deducting from category method since its more predictable behavior. It gives flexibility on how you want to handle things. The usual example is reimbursed business expenses.
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Aug 31, 2017 14:57
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TraderStav posted:Of course this only works if you have excess funds in your budget to cover. If you're check to check and that $900 would cause an overdraft or take on new debt you wouldn't want to roll it forward. Correct. It's really a convenience thing to prevent you from having to move 900 dollars from another category over to cover this, then assign the actual reimbursement income to wherever you took it out of. If, for example, you're spending on a credit card, or you've got the float, and you know your company has a reliable reimbursement regimen, it's a handy way to keep track of if the company has actually reimbursed you. But yes, it's also a bit of a hack, so to speak, trying to turn what is a glorified check balancing app into more of an actual accounting app. Still, nice to have the option. I've used it myself for similar things.
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Aug 31, 2017 18:00
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thegasman2000 posted:So I am testing YNAB for the 30 day trial at the moment. My question is regarding entering income from the past week or so. I have added my income from a few days ago and started to enter in transactions to show where the money went up to today. Then I saw on one of the many youtube videos that's wrong and i should have just started my budget with the £42 I have in my account. Just add the extra 42 quid as income, from 'money already in bank,' manually mark it as 'cleared,' and assign it to something. Easy peasy. Or look for an 'adjust balance' option; I use YNAB 4, and that's an option under the account itself. Dunno about nYNAB. TheCenturion fucked around with this message at 17:56 on Dec 5, 2017 |
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Dec 5, 2017 17:54
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No, you can't have a shared budget without having a shared budget. The closest you could do would be to each assume that it's not a shared credit card; that is to say, you cover your spending, she covers her spending, and you each do all reconciliation by hand, by entering line items off of a physical bill, and matching them to your own purchases and payments. If one of you EVER misses a payment, it'll be hosed, and neither one of you will have an accurate view of what's actually owing on the card.
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Dec 19, 2017 19:42
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George H.W. oval office posted:I'm unemployed at the moment and will start pulling from my savings. Do you do that transfer from savings to checking as an income even though it isnt really true income? If the savings account is on budget, i.e. the bank account is listed as a 'budget account' and you have a budget category labelled 'Long Term Savings' or whatever, you just remove money from that budget category, then budget it to whatever. You should also enter a transfer from the savings account to the checking account so that the account totals all reflect reality, as well. If the savings account is off budget, i.e. it's in the 'off budget accounts' section, or YNAB just flat out doesn't know about it, you transfer the money into your checking account, list it in YNAB as 'income for month whatever' and allocate it as normal.
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Jan 8, 2018 15:54
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Mikey Purp posted:Cool, thanks for the tips everyone. Why wouldn’t that money need a job? What’s so special about it? It’s either on budget, and every dollar has a job, or it’s off budget, and it doesn’t exist for budgetary purposes.
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Jan 10, 2018 23:22
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Dwight Eisenhower posted:The first month I used YNAB I didn't even bother to set budget amounts: I just spent and categorized my spending. Yeah, I didn't have a plan, but since I didn't have any specifically allocated amounts I also didn't blow any categories. It was useful for establishing a baseline of what undisciplined spending, and what non-discretionary spending looked like. Well, chances are a lot of your bills are fixed; there's always X amount coming out on the 5th for car insurance, there's always Y amount coming out on the 8th for hydro bill (  ) and so on. Go ahead and budget that immediately.But, it's absolutely valid to just have a big old part called 'discretionary spending' that you dump a bunch of money into, then when you go to Burger King or whatever, you charge that amount to your 'restaurant' category, which then goes negative, then you move some budgeted dollars from 'discretionary' to 'restaurant.' Then, after several months, you get an idea of your average monthly spending, and you can start pre-allocating. Hell, I've been YNABing for years, and I still do this.
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Jan 11, 2018 21:12
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Remove the budget from the phone and re-add?
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Mar 3, 2018 06:01
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