YNABJ - Everyone needs one! - The Something Awful Forums

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > YNABJ - Everyone needs one!

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Old Fart: Jul 25, 2013

I agree with that approach.

# ¿ Jul 17, 2014 10:12

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 23:23

Old Fart: Jul 25, 2013

Suspicious Lump posted:

I'd prefer to simply setup a budget and not touch it for a while.

Is there any option that simplifies this? I'd prefer to have a fortnightly budget. I think it's a major flaw/limitation in YNAB.

What do you have in mind? With varying income, even if it's fortnightly, how would you set a budget and never change it? I'm not really sure what you're wanting.

The solution, I think, is to get one month ahead. Then you budget the previous couple of paychecks together at the same time. When the next month comes along, you can simply copy the previous month's numbers (under the lightning bolt symbol at the top, next to the month's summary). I think that's basically what you want, if I'm reading you right?

It's not good at forecasting, no. It's for getting your spending under control, and living within your means of what you've already earned, not what you think you might earn.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2014 04:33

Old Fart: Jul 25, 2013

Your Dead Gay Son posted:

It's mostly frustrating cause I get paid once a month and it's always around 28-29th. I wish I could just set YNAB to start the month on the 28th or something dumb.

What's the difference between that and simply marking it as next month's income? The final goal of YNAB is to get away from spending money as soon as you earn it. What's the benefit of starting on the 28th? What would that change for you?

Suspicious Lump posted:

I have a massive buffer in the form of a savings goal just sitting there. The issue is not availability of money, it's more about setting up an ideal budgeting scenario which, after initial tweaking and modification of categories and their limits, I would not have to touch again. Currently I find myself having to go back in and reenter my budget because I haven't found an optimal way of using YNAB.

As we've been saying, click on that lightning bolt. Unless I'm misunderstanding what you need?

Are you just using the savings buffer and budgeting paycheck to paycheck, or have you used that buffer to budget one month ahead, and label the paychecks as next month's income? If not, I strongly recommend it. It makes everything easier.

Suspicious Lump posted:

I think another problem is my pay essentially goes into 3 different bank accounts and this adds to my lack of transaction recording. I completely realise this is all nitpicking and if I wanted I could work with YNAB but I think having such a settings limited environment is really hindering the software. I can see why they've done it though, but an advance mode would make a lot of people happy.

YNAB doesn't care where the money lives. It's all part of the budget. I don't understand how that hinders your transaction recording? Could you explain a bit?

# ¿ Aug 5, 2014 16:23

Old Fart: Jul 25, 2013

Your Dead Gay Son posted:

It would look prettier I guess.

I'm not sure how? Whether you're paid every day or twice a month or once a month, it all gets marked as next month's income, right?

greazeball posted:

I sympathize with the multi bank account hassle. We've got some legacy account transfers that mean my savings balance in YNAB doesn't match the bank balance.

You mean a savings budget line doesn't match a savings account value? On-budget accounts don't matter. Don't look at those numbers. But the accounts themselves should be matching, right? Am I misinderstanding?

greazeball posted:

Nthing the rule 4/get a month ahead. loving hell it has changed everything.

drat skippy.

Suspicious Lump posted:

In regards to lightning bolt, I use that and it's really amazing but I stopped using it because it is considered forecasting. But I realise now if I use last months income to budget for this month it would solve this problem.

It's not forecasting if you're just using it as a quick way to copy your base numbers. Just scroll the month view so that it's out of view until the month is active. Then you don't see the red anything.

Another thing you can do is put the standard values in the category names. For example: "Rent (850)". Then to make your budget at the top of the month and avoid the red, quickly type it all in. Takes about fifteen seconds. You don't have to click every field; just hit return.

Suspicious Lump posted:

Yes, I'm budgeting paycheck to paycheck. I'm essentially living off last months paycheck but budgeting month to month. In regards to different accounts, I was being pedantic and trying to have everything into YNAB and being worried when the totals dont match up (because I get paid fortnightly).

Why are the totals not matching up? What does the pay period have to do with it?

# ¿ Aug 6, 2014 04:33

Old Fart: Jul 25, 2013

Hawkgirl posted:

Am I really a month ahead if I'm more like two days ahead? I guess I don't really need months to start on the 28th as much as I want YNAB to let me allocate money more than one month ahead.

Grouco posted:

I get paid on the 15th and 30th/31st, but I enter the 30th/31st payment as the 1st of the next month.

Yeah, I think this is your solution. Since you're manually entering transactions anyway, seems pretty easy to do.

Suspicious Lump posted:

I get paid $1000 every 2 weeks.
I forecast - $2000/month.

At the beginning of the month
Actual balance: $1000
YNAB Balance: $2000

Yeah, get to Step 4 and you won't have this problem. Most expenses aren't fortnightly, and the hassle of remembering which bills are paid with which paycheck can make you crazy. Step 4, pay everything on the 1st, and you're done.

# ¿ Aug 6, 2014 15:17

Old Fart: Jul 25, 2013

HonorableTB posted:

Why does my net worth get shown as decreasing further? Is it because I don't yet have a buffer and that's affecting it, despite the amount of debt decreasing as well? I automatically add money to my savings each pay period and then pay all expenses out of the floating amount left in my checking account. Can someone help explain this to me?

That's very strange. I would check which accounts are included in it, and then refresh it. It's possible your savings account is checked off.

HonorableTB posted:

Edit: I lied, another question. How should I classify my 401(k) amount in YNAB? I just remembered I have one and 3% of my pay gets put into it automatically. It's only about $200 now since the benefits just kicked in a month ago, but I still want to track it as an asset.

I have it as an Off-Budget account. I don't bother with counting it as income and then taking it off, unless you're interested in tracking the taxes. (Question: does anybody go to that level of detail?) I update it about once every three months, enter monthly contributions and changes in market value. But honestly, you could just do that once a year. Or not at all. It's interesting for your net worth, but it's not your immediate liquid value. At the same time, it's nice to have that reflection of getting better.

BTW, you should be putting as much as you can into your 401k, or at the very least up to what your employer matches. That's free money.

# ¿ Sep 9, 2014 18:47

Old Fart: Jul 25, 2013

I only starred syncing last night, but I had to install a new version of Dropbox. Maybe that's it?

# ¿ Sep 22, 2014 16:01

Old Fart: Jul 25, 2013

You mean you'll get additional charges every month? You can set up automatic payments, so it will show up every month.

# ¿ Oct 14, 2014 00:01

Old Fart: Jul 25, 2013

How is this different than a recurring bill set to automatic payment, like electric or cable?

# ¿ Oct 15, 2014 01:39

Old Fart: Jul 25, 2013

We have personal discretionary line items. I've usually either used cash or bought a gift card at Target for whatever it was I wanted to order online (seriously everybody has a gift card now). There are also Visa gift cards.

# ¿ Nov 17, 2014 02:35

Old Fart: Jul 25, 2013

I'd say you're doing it exactly right. If you're not at Rule 4, then I'd zero out the categories to get there (just budget negative), but if you are, then there you go. As was said, it's a built-in emergency fund. Alternately, you can stop contributing to those categories for a while and build up retirement or vacation savings. Or whatever you want. Welcome to the peace and flexibility that comes with good budgeting.

# ¿ Dec 1, 2014 18:00

Old Fart: Jul 25, 2013

I use it for credit card payments. Even though it's different every month, I don't get a paper statement, so I have it pop up the day the statement is online to remind myself to pay it. Of course, it's listed as a transfer, but this way I don't accidentally pay interest.

I also use it for other regular bills.

# ¿ Dec 28, 2014 23:20

Old Fart: Jul 25, 2013

That, or just look at the transfers from your on-budget accounts. You can filter by current year. Any earnings will be listed as interest or whatever, not transferred from an on-budget account.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2015 02:51

Old Fart: Jul 25, 2013

That's awesome, congrats!

We've also had a lot of "one time" hardships this year, and YNAB most definitely helped us get a handle on them. Good thing we were at Rule 4!

# ¿ Jan 6, 2015 07:32

Old Fart: Jul 25, 2013

This is why it's good to get to Step 4, so you don't have to worry about it.

It's really easier than you think. As you say, you're already saving for rent in the previous month's budget. And most bills you receive in January aren't due until the first week in February. Just save up a buffer to cover groceries and the like, and boom. Step 4.

# ¿ Jan 29, 2015 01:14

Old Fart: Jul 25, 2013

Captain Magic posted:

So let's say I will have enough in my buffer at the end of February to pay for March's bills. But, at the same time that I have plenty of money in that buffer, I get a paycheck at the end of February which normally would go toward March. So, now, that paycheck goes toward the buffer for April. I get two paychecks from one job during March which go straight to the buffer for April. I have another paycheck at the end of March from my online business which also goes to the buffer--which conceivably would pay for...May?

There are a couple of ways you can handle it. What it sounds like to me is that you're currently having budget overflows every month and are budgeting several months ahead. That's fine if it works for you. You always know how far out you can live if income stops today.

Another way is to use income from February for March's budget, and anything you don't need throw into a long-term savings or emergency fund line-item. Every month you budget to zero. Then everything you earn in March gets budgeted for April, and excess goes to long-term savings.

Captain Magic posted:

As a related question--are you guys including money set aside for savings and spending money when you pay from last month's income (i.e. you've got enough for that in your buffer), or is just the mandatory stuff like rent/groceries etc?

Yes, I do that. Money earned in January is budgeted in all categories in February, and that includes savings and spending money. It's the same as living hand-to-mouth, except you get a lump sum at the beginning of every month, and don't have to worry about running out of cash before your next paycheck.

# ¿ Jan 31, 2015 08:34

Old Fart: Jul 25, 2013

HonorableTB posted:

Okay I'm confused about how to do this. I got paid today, but January isn't over, and I still have expenses for January (last rent payment for Feb plus groceries and such). How do I categorize this income? Income for January or February? If I do it for February, will I have to fudge the transaction dates for everything I buy today to make it jive? I don't want to put another rent payment in February because I'm already going to have two of them that month to pay for March and it will throw my numbers off. Do I set it as income for January? But the problem with that is that I have bills that need to be paid *in February*, but are due before my next check comes in, so they need to be paid this pay period. But I've already paid those bills for January, and adding more money to the categories for January means my numbers for Feb will be off.

Goddamn I hate not being paid on the 15th and 30th/31st of the month like I used to. I get paid every second Friday now, no matter when that date falls, and it makes this a lot harder than it should be.

I think you may be making this more complicated for yourself. If you're not a month ahead, then just mark it as income for January, and budget the numbers for your bills that are due before your next paycheck. The budgeted values carry over month to month if you don't spend them. You'll budget in January, spend in February. Edit: or just let the money roll over in "available to budget", and put them in February if that feels better. I'm not sure what numbers are going to be "off". The reports track money spent, not money budgeted.

If I'm reading you right, you make multiple payments a month for rent? Is there a special reason for that, or are you just Australian?

I think you could benefit from getting to Step 4. Then there will be no more "I gotta pay this before my next paycheck" because everything will be available on the 1st of every month. It doesn't matter if you get paid January 1 or 31, because it always becomes available to budget on February 1. These days I sometimes forget when it's payday, because it doesn't matter anyway. It's a nice feeling.

Old Fart fucked around with this message at 22:42 on Jan 31, 2015

# ¿ Jan 31, 2015 08:40

Old Fart: Jul 25, 2013

You'll be a lot less stressed when you're there. Imagine, just letting money pile up in your checking account and not even thinking about it.

You also don't need a full month's expenses to do it. Take, for example, this bill that due in a week. You're using January's income to do it. That bill is already a month ahead. Rent is something else. If your rent is due on the 1st, then you're already budgeting that a month ahead, too.

It's probably closer to reality than you think.

# ¿ Feb 1, 2015 08:25

Old Fart: Jul 25, 2013

That's pretty awesome. It's saved us in similar ways, so many times. For example, my debit card was compromised and had about $800 in fraudulent charges. Got it reversed, no problem, and learned to use only credit cards online. But my wife's coworkers were all, "OMG, I hope it wasn't a problem getting all the overdraft charges reversed!" Yeeeeah...

But years ago, I would have multiple overdrafts just due to my own stupidity. So stressful, and certainty didn't help my overall mood.

Good luck, you're almost there!

# ¿ Feb 1, 2015 09:16

Old Fart: Jul 25, 2013

I'm not a fan of it, either, but I don't think YNAB 4 is going to disappear from my computer. It works fine, I don't really need any additional tools or software support.

# ¿ Feb 6, 2015 01:53

Old Fart: Jul 25, 2013

How would they do that? Reach over the interwow and delete my software?

# ¿ Feb 6, 2015 02:43

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 23:23

Old Fart: Jul 25, 2013

What's giving you trouble, exactly?

The date on your statement shouldn't matter. Can you log into your bank's website and view your transactions to date? That will give me a running balance, which is how much I owe at the moment, which makes it easy to reconcile with my own records. Pending charges don't show on the list, but they only affect available credit, not amount owed, so it's easy enough.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2015 05:07

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > YNABJ - Everyone needs one!

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