YNABJ - Everyone needs one! - The Something Awful Forums

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

mrmcd: Feb 22, 2003; Pictured: The only good cop (a fictional one).

I have three buffer categories I usually use for extra income.

The first is an "Emergency Fund" which is basically a big pool of money earmarked that I could live off of if I lost all my income for period of time. (Unemployed, Disabled, Etc).

The second is just a "Cash Savings" fund where I put money once the first "Emergency Fund" is topped up to X months of living expenses. I separated them out because I wanted one category that was clearly "This is for important poo poo don't touch it" and another that was "Here's extra reserves you can tap if you want/need to do something big (buy a car, go on lavish vacation, dog needs exotic 3d-printed dog brain, etc)".

The last is labeled "Investments" and I try to balance this with cash savings. My retirement and investment accounts are all off-budget, and transfers to them are categorized as spending from this account. The idea is after there's good enough buffers on the first two, extra cash in a deposit account is better used as an investment.

A couple extra notes:

- I don't spend from Savings/Emergency budget category. I negative budget and then budget extra for the actual category spending. So If I have a surprise 3k medical bill it's classified as "Medical" so I can still go back in reports instead of mystery "Cash Savings"

- I have separate categories still for infrequent spending, like Christmas, Insurance Bills, etc. Even if they are only paid out a few times a year I don't want to spend the other months without allocating the money, because otherwise it's all in an opaque and mysterious "Cash Savings" pile.

# ¿ Jun 9, 2015 17:19

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 22, 2024 01:53

mrmcd: Feb 22, 2003; Pictured: The only good cop (a fictional one).

Irritated Goat posted:

The positive is because that card is 100% paid off. Should this be $0 instead? The others are owed on so the negative is the amount owed. I'll move the car loan to off-budget.

Yes. It should only be positive of you overpaid and you have a credit on your account (as in the bank owes you).

As you have it now YNAB thinks you have $800 more that you do, so your budget is inflated by $800.

# ¿ Jun 12, 2015 19:24

mrmcd: Feb 22, 2003; Pictured: The only good cop (a fictional one).

Madbullogna posted:

I'm sure this has been asked & answered, but I can't locate it....

When I have various bills budgeted for the following month, (in this case, July when they are due), but I pay them early in the current month, it throws things out of line. The only way I can get it to 'look' right is to post-date the transaction. However, that means my reconciliation is then out of line. What's the easiest way to deal with this?

Example - Paid this CC today 06/23, but is is not due until 07/02 -

Here is how it shows when I post-date the transaction showing I paid it on 07/01 -

Things like credit cards (unless you are trying to payoff and close them) should be their own separate accounts and the payments for them should be transfers to that account lowering the negative balance. Transfers don't have budget categories, everything you buy with the credit card is logged as their respective category, and the transfer is just moving money from one account to another.

Otherwise, what I do for things like that is let the budget category go negative and mark it to carry the balance forward. Then when you allocate the budget the next month it will zero out.

For example, lets say my rent is 750 a month, due on the first, but I like to pay my landlord on the 28th a few days early just to make sure it's not late. I log the payment on the 28th of the current month because that when my bank takes it out, it overspends and carries it forward, then I allocate 750 of budget for the next month and it balances out to zero: 750 allocated, 750 spent.

# ¿ Jun 23, 2015 14:18

mrmcd: Feb 22, 2003; Pictured: The only good cop (a fictional one).

Rurutia posted:

I have it off budget in YNAB. It doesn't bother me to have a flatter slope.

Yeah do it off budget. If you want your net worth to be more accurate make another off budget account to track the value of your house and update it with an estimate once a quarter or so.

So like if your house is worth 400k and your mortgage is 320k, make one off-budget account called "Mortgage, -320k" and another called "House Value, +400k". When you make a house payment log it as a transfer to the off budget account, categorizing it as "Mortgage" or whatever category you use, and add an outflow transaction to the mortgage account for interest that month. Then if done correctly the mortgage account's negative balance should drop as your remaining principal does, and it will net out with the asset value of the house on the other account.

Obviously this is kind of complicated and nerding out a bit, so the easier solution is to just not track the mortgage in YNAB then add your home equity amount to YNAB's net worth number when you want to see what your real net worth is.

# ¿ Jun 23, 2015 15:50

mrmcd: Feb 22, 2003; Pictured: The only good cop (a fictional one).

Chin Strap posted:

Anyone have any good rules of thumb for maximum values on a rainy day fund? Like we have some maintenance categories like "Home Maintenance", "Car Maintenance", etc where we add decent amounts every month, but I figure there must be a point where enough is enough and I can redirect to other items. These funds are different from our actual emergency fund.

Should we just be aiming for "what is the biggest one time expense we could reasonably expect" level?

Six months of living expenses is pretty common, but really it's whatever you feel comfortable with.

# ¿ Jul 1, 2015 14:40

mrmcd: Feb 22, 2003; Pictured: The only good cop (a fictional one).

I actually like to rebalance budget categories mid month of I overspend. That way if I, say, go crazy spending on bars and eating out one month I know I have to dial back spending on other fun things to compensate.

Otherwise you can just let YNAB roll it forward to the next month by subtracting from that category or the overall budgeting amount available. (This behavior is toggled by clicking on the overspend amount in the budgeting table.)

# ¿ Aug 1, 2015 17:09

mrmcd: Feb 22, 2003; Pictured: The only good cop (a fictional one).

Randler posted:

I have a category for Traveling and Transportation, where I budget for my regular traveling expenses and which I adjust if I have to go somewhere quickly.

Now I have to go to a thing for work and while I'll be reimbursed for any travel expenses, I'll have to pay them out of pocket first. Should I readjust my Traveling category accordingly or just overspent because the reimbursement will cancel it out? (The latter implies possibly overbudgeting for August, since reimbursement might only come in in September.)

If you have enough cash on hand where overspending isn't going to empty your bank account, then just overspend and carry the negative balance forward. When you get reimbursed mark that portion as Travel instead of income and it will balance out eventually. Also consider making a separate budget category just for reimbursable expenses especially if this is something you're going to do regularly.

If you don't have the cash on hand, take money out of another budget to cover it, then when you're reimbursed give it back to whatever categories you borrowed it from. This way you won't risk overdrafting your bank account.

# ¿ Aug 3, 2015 19:44

mrmcd: Feb 22, 2003; Pictured: The only good cop (a fictional one).

I mean the whole thing I liked about YNAB versus something like Mint was it wasn't hoovering up all my data and keeping it on a server and selling it to who knows what data mining marketers.

I known the drop box sync is also technically a server in don't control but I can at least see all the files its writing and they're under my account, I can delete them, and its totally optional and not storing passwords or account numbers or anything.

Unless there's some super awesome new features I don't see a reason to upgrade.

# ¿ Nov 11, 2015 17:39

mrmcd: Feb 22, 2003; Pictured: The only good cop (a fictional one).

Practically speaking, if you want to "activate" rule 4 in YNAB, you just categorize the income as next month. So if you start doing it in December, every December paycheck gets marked "Income for January" , and YNAB won't show it as available to budget until the January column. Then for December either draw down positive rollovers from November, or negative budget the emergency fund and apply it to what you need. Then in January any extra income can go back into the emergency fund.

Like the other poster said, if you've been saving enough, then you should have more than one month saved in the emergency fund, so all you're really doing is splitting off a months worth of saved cash into a separate pool for the "upcoming" month. Another way to think of it:

Without Rule 4, you have:

"Hot" dollars - money that's in a budget and OK to spend.
"Cold" dollars - money that's off budget or in a emergency fund category that can be used to cover sudden expenses or shortfalls.

With Rule 4:

"Hot" dollars - money that's OK to spend today
"Warm" dollars - money that's scheduled to be allocated and spent next month
"Cold" dollars - money that's a true emergency fund or savings to cover an unexpected shortfall or huge expense.

# ¿ Nov 17, 2015 20:35

mrmcd: Feb 22, 2003; Pictured: The only good cop (a fictional one).

Yeah that's the other thing, you can just do a gradual change over without touching the emergency fund by intentionally over allocating against your spending categories and letting them roll over.

So if on the first of a month your rollover balance for every category should be enough to cover what you normally spend that month, then just start putting all new pay checks in the next month. Congratulations, you are now Rule 4 compliant without an emergency fund drawdown.

# ¿ Nov 17, 2015 20:59

mrmcd: Feb 22, 2003; Pictured: The only good cop (a fictional one).

tyler is a joke posted:

I'm not sure I'm clear on what you're asking, but YNAB doesn't do future budgeting. If you want to write up next's month's budget but don't have money to cover it, you will be in the red. You only budget what you have. Once you start having excess money (i.e. your cash on hand covers more than your current month expenses) you can start budgeting ahead with that cash.

One day, I'll be there.

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.

You should still try to get on a Rule 4 system, because that greatly reduces the risk of spending money you don't have, but there's no reason you can't do future budgeting.

# ¿ Jan 9, 2016 17:56

mrmcd: Feb 22, 2003; Pictured: The only good cop (a fictional one).

TheCenturion posted:

This violates the philosophy of only budget money you have.

Yeah I'm not saying you should, just that the program will let you do it.

# ¿ Jan 9, 2016 19:51

mrmcd: Feb 22, 2003; Pictured: The only good cop (a fictional one).

I think your problem is your savings accounts should be on budget accounts. Then each month if you want to say, allocate $300 to "Savings" or "Emergency Fund" you put that number in the budget line, don't spend that money, and the budget balance carries over month to month.

Then let's say your car breaks down and you unexpectedly need $1000 to fix it. You can either negative budget -$1000 from savings, giving your "available to budget" an extra +$1000 you can the allocate to "Car Maintenance" or whatever. The other option is you can categorize the $1000 repair bill transaction as the savings category, drawing down from that available pool. Which you pick only matters for how detailed and accurate you want your spending reports to be.

What account the actual dollars sit in doesn't matter to YNAB if both accounts are on budget. Transfers between on budget accounts don't have categories and don't affect your budget, its just moving dollars from one holding tank to another.

# ¿ Jan 14, 2016 15:54

mrmcd: Feb 22, 2003; Pictured: The only good cop (a fictional one).

Teeter posted:

Do any of you bother keeping an HSA on-budget? (YNAB4)

I occasionally use my card for some OTC item like contact solution or condoms but for the most part it just sits there and requires effort to add inflow and keep the budget equal. I'm weighing out whether it's worth it or if I should leave it off budget and ignore tracking those sort of items and doctor visits altogether.

I keep mine on budget but have a "Healthcare" category equal to the balance of my HSA account. Things charged directly to the HSA card get categorized that way. Reimbursements are just transfers (no category) and the original charge is categorized appropriately.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2016 00:00

mrmcd: Feb 22, 2003; Pictured: The only good cop (a fictional one).

Easychair Bootson posted:

Yeah, I do that with my retirement accounts, which are off budget. At the beginning of each month when I allocate my budget I go to each retirement account and hit reconcile, enter the account's current balance, then "finish," and allow YNAB to create the adjustment transaction.

I do the same, except I just add a transaction called something like "Mark to Market" that reflects the loss or gain that month so it matches the account value on the statement. Transfers to the Retirement or Investment accounts get categorized in a "To Invest" category, which is money I set aside from my income for retirement and investments beyond what's automatically deducted from my paycheck. If I'm still using YNAB in 30 years when I tap those accounts, the transfers back to on budget would be categorized as income.

In super, super nerdy RPG terms:

On budget accounts is the "Material Plane", where everyday life takes place. Money that enters the material plane must be assigned a category, either directly (reimbursements, etc) or through budgeting (income and then assigned out of the available pool at the budget screen). Money can only leave the material plane through spending (destroyed), or transfers to off-budget accounts. In both instances it must have a category assigned.

Off budget accounts is the "Astral Plane of Finance", a mysterious realm haunted by good and evil banker daemons, creatures that wield the magiks of investment and debt. Accounts on this plane are for long term savings or debt, and money banished to this plane is not meant to interact with your everyday life at all. If you did your 401k and investments correctly, hopefully more money will return to the material plane one day decades from now, rather than less money.

I am a huge dork who will die alone on top of my gigantic treasure horde (thanks YNAB!)

# ¿ Apr 30, 2016 18:45

mrmcd: Feb 22, 2003; Pictured: The only good cop (a fictional one).

You know why so many programs have a box that say something like "Send anonymous usage data to make XYZ better"? It's so they can collect actual data on what aspects of a program people are actually clicking on and spending time in, rather than going with "I asked my friends and also some jerks on Twitter yelled at me."

# ¿ Oct 31, 2016 13:10

mrmcd: Feb 22, 2003; Pictured: The only good cop (a fictional one).

Steampunk Hitler posted:

I've spent like 490.00 this month on my Amazon Card, so nynab has that "available" for me to pay my bill. However the Amazon Prime Store Card applied a $10 credit to my credit card account, lowering the amount I owe. To me it seemed like the sane way to handle this was to just add a inflow transaction to my CC that treated that as income. This makes the balance on the CC correct as well as not reducing the original spend, it just frees up that money to spend elsewhere. However this confuses the nynab system that still has $490 (instead of $480) "available". I'm going to have to wait I guess to see what it does once I actually pay the $480, if it zeros out the bill or if I need to convince it to forget about that $10 somehow.

That's what I do for CC rebates. Unless it's for like a rebate on a specific purchase, then I apply it to the appropriate category.

# ¿ Jan 18, 2017 13:49

mrmcd: Feb 22, 2003; Pictured: The only good cop (a fictional one).

Chaotic Flame posted:

You'll have to pull YNAB4 out of my cold, dead fingers before I give it up willingly.

My plan is to keep using it until either Adobe Air or the Dropbox API gets too dead for it to keep working, and then probably come to this thread in a panic for alternatives.

# ¿ May 18, 2018 12:45

mrmcd: Feb 22, 2003; Pictured: The only good cop (a fictional one).

I hadn't been keeping up with this thread since I was a dyed in the wool YNAB4 dead ender, and decided they could pry it from my clammy goon hands when Adobe Air finally stopped working on my old as poo poo windows desktop machine.

Is nYNAB good yet? Aside from a monthly subscription fee I remember it had some janky way of dealing credit cards if you were just paying them off each month for points and reimbursable work expenses.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2020 13:43

mrmcd: Feb 22, 2003; Pictured: The only good cop (a fictional one).

doingitwrong posted:

Wait, what's the problem, with paid off credit cards? You set it up as a credit card. When you make a purchase, you charge it to a category and note the card as the account and it automatically takes money from your budget and adds it to the available payment on that card and the adjusts the balance of what you owe. When you make the payment, it's a balance transfer from your checking to the CC. This all seems very sane to me but I joined after YNAB4 so don't know what I'm missing.

This is how it works on YNAB4 and it's fine but iirc in nYNAB it makes some weird assumption that if you have credit card balances you hosed up somehow, so all CC charges are a "unpaid debits" category instead of like, letting you mark the grocery store charge as "groceries" and the movie theater as "entertainment".

Like it get there are some people who really need that kind of strict discipline and shouldn't be using anything other than debit cards. There are also people out there that actually pay off the balance in full each month and just use them for convenience, points, and segregating your bank account from every random sandwich shop POS system lousy with rootkits.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2020 17:45

mrmcd: Feb 22, 2003; Pictured: The only good cop (a fictional one).

I import credit cards and bank accounts every few days while having coffee in the morning. Cash spending gets entered as I go in the app.

But I'm also not likely to run out of money, so it's OK if some budgets have to be tweaked a few days after being spent. If things are tighter then entering CC/Debit transactions as you go is the right procedure.

# ¿ Jan 31, 2020 19:33

mrmcd: Feb 22, 2003; Pictured: The only good cop (a fictional one).

If you really wanna track the net worth correctly (in YNAB4 at least) you would:

- Create an off-budget account for the mortgage (very big negative number)

- Create an off-budget account for the value of the house (hopefully bigger positive number)

- Make transfers to the mortgage account monthly for the house payment. Either add the interest monthly to the mortgage account or split the on-budget payment into an interest part and a principal part (the transfer)

- periodically update the house value account with an estimated value.

# ¿ Oct 23, 2021 17:31

mrmcd: Feb 22, 2003; Pictured: The only good cop (a fictional one).

Amazon Prime monthly plan is less than YNAB now lol.

# ¿ Nov 1, 2021 16:49

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 22, 2024 01:53

mrmcd: Feb 22, 2003; Pictured: The only good cop (a fictional one).

Pollyanna posted:

For money that’s set aside for the next three months, do you all keep it in your checking account or put it in a HYSA and pull it out when it’s needed?

Like an emergency fund? HYSA or federal MMF at a brokerage.

Even if you have a feast or famine income pattern I don't see a reason to keep more than a month of expenses in a checking account that earns nothing. When interest rates were zero it didn't matter, but now it's so easy to transfer money back to a checking account online and have it available in 1-2 days you're giving up free money by not putting it in a HYSA or MMF.

# ¿ Nov 3, 2023 19:08

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