YNABJ - Everyone needs one! - The Something Awful Forums

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

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

I've used quicken since 2005 and I still use it, but I never liked how budgeting worked. I love quicken for analysis of spending and tracking all accounts reasonably easily. YNAB had let me get a far better handle on my spending, and I'm actually setting a budget and changing it as the month progresses as needed. 2014 should show how effective it is for me, but I love it thus far. Now to get my gf to use it..!

# ¿ Jan 3, 2014 21:31

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 03:21

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

londonmoose posted:

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.

# ¿ Feb 10, 2014 02:25

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!

# ¿ Feb 12, 2014 01:14

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Gothmog1065 posted:

This is correct. The only thing that should show up in my outflows are the minimum payments and interest

That's the thing though. The CC's are on budget, but I can't find a reasonable way to get the payment to show up in the "outflow" category. One transaction is my transfer to pay off the purchases, another is the actual minim payment, but neither (as they should) show up in the outflow. However, my overall amount actually matches my budgeted amount.

I think I get what you mean.

Say you have a $1000 balance on the card and charge $200 to the card (every item is categorized as it should be) and you incur $20 in interest. You make a $300 payment to the card. You will budget $100 to Pre-YNAB Debt, and categorize the $20 in interest as Pre-YNAB Debt.

You don't need an outflow against the CC. The budgeted amount ($100-20) will be the amount your CC debt decreased.

Trust me, just do it like this, it works.

# ¿ Mar 4, 2014 04:06

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Wait, really? I thought YNAB suggested not forecasting expenses and entering them ahead of current period. Seems like you could calculate monthly expenses based on average of last 6mo, multiple by 6 (or hey take the sum of last 6mo) and that is your efund target amount. You could subtract out non-essentials, user discretion required.

# ¿ Mar 4, 2014 22:11

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Me in Reverse posted:

..you guys are overcomplicating.

1) RULE 4 is "Live on last month's income". Meaning if you get paid March 1 and March 15, you mark both of those as "Income for April" because you've got enough of a buffer in your checking account to pay for everything in March without spending March's paychecks.

2) You *can* budget however far in advance you want, and mark Income for whatever date in the future you want. That's just not part of the YNAB 'system'. You shouldn't budget for money you don't have on-hand.

That's what I thought but I was mobile and didn't want to look it up.

I don't see the point to forecast every budget item 6 months out, in general. I can take my monthly expenses and multiple by 6 and come up with what I need for the next 6 months. Every non-monthly expense (insurance, for example) is accrued monthly and paid every 6-12mo, at least in my budget, so monthly rate * 6 = 6mo rate, monthly rate * 12 / 26 = paycheck rate, etc.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2014 03:11

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

E: shoulda read the rest of the new posts before posting - we all do it the same way! Sorry for the worthless triple post!

Grouco posted:

Does anyone have suggestions on how to handle splitting a dinner bill?

I have a 'Restaurants' sub-category in a 'Luxuries' master. Say I go out for dinner, and it costs $60 total. I'll end up putting $60 on my CC, while my date/friend gives me $30 cash. So far I've just been listing $60 as a Restaurant outflow, and then counting the $30 as new income for the month.

Is there a better way to do this? Maybe with split transactions or something?

Not saying this is ideal, but this is how I've done it in both quicken and YNAB. I mark both the inflow and outflow as the same category and then comment like 'BuddyName lunch' for both transactions. Then when I pull a report on dining expenses, I'll see the comments and know the inflow is the offset to the outflow.

I played with splitting the expense into 2 transactions (both in the same dining category) and having the one commented as 'BuddyName lunch' the same dollar amount as the inflow, but that was more effort than I wanted to apply for not gain. I can tell that -22 and +12 from 2 transactions means that my net expense was 10.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2014 23:08

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Henrik Zetterberg posted:

Makes sense.

I made a negative contribution to my emergency fund (for this month) and shifted that money to my Medical category to 0 the balance. Easy enough!

HDHP ftw! Run a CBA, you're coming out ahead.

You used your HSA for this expense, right? If not, start contributing more, and then take a withdraw in the amount of the expense and you'll avoid tax on that expense.

# ¿ Mar 14, 2014 19:54

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Henrik Zetterberg posted:

Nope, I actually thought that HSA was a use-it-or-lose-it at the end of the year, so I never bothered. Now that I know this is not the case, I will definitely set one up.

Ah! You're thinking FSA. I use to think they were the same, then I became eligible for an HSA and figured it out. Def utilize it if you have the availability to.

# ¿ Mar 14, 2014 23:37

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Kenny Rogers posted:

This isn't directed at you, necessarily - since you're a student - but it is directed at anyone else who might happen upon this in the future.

I am a Case Study for YNAB.
In February 2013, I paid $68 in overdraft fees to my bank. While this didn't happen EVERY month, it wasn't uncommon.
In March 2013, I bought YNAB at FULL PRICE.
As of March 2014, I have been able to pay off $8958 in debt (paying off 4 of 5 credit cards in the process), $3000 to put down on a car, and have $1600 (one paycheck) in Buffer.
Spending $60 saved $13,558.

Don't tell me you can't afford $60 because you're living paycheck to paycheck, or are 'poor'.
Household Income for 2012 was pushing $100k pretty hard, and STILL living paycheck to paycheck - overdrafts and overlimit fees, late fees - wondering where the gently caress all the money was going.
You can't afford NOT to spend $60.

drat good post sir! I wish my friend would buy into this. He/wife make a bit over 100k a year and he's broke as gently caress all the time. He does his budget in his head, aka spend till it's rejected!

# ¿ Apr 8, 2014 00:10

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Yep this has happened to me over the years. I reconcile at month end, every month, these days. It makes it far easier to hunt down the transactions!

# ¿ Apr 29, 2014 18:49

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

tuyop posted:

Man, I've got a balance in one of my dozens of hidden categories. Is there any way to find which category it is without unhiding them all?

Doesn't a CSV export show hidden categories? I'm pretty sure it does, and if so, there you go!

# ¿ May 12, 2014 20:24

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

GAYS FOR DAYS posted:

What's the best way to handle cash back rewards on a credit card? Just as income? Or do you just make a reconciliation transaction?

I have a category for "bank interest and fees" (or similar) and I use that for statement credits. Makes it a bit easier to track than as raw income, but probably isn't quite right.

# ¿ May 30, 2014 18:26

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Veskit posted:

Is there a report that shows you how much money you've transferred between accounts? I'm trying to figure out how much money I've moved into savings/pre YNAB debt accounts.

I figured out a way using the transactions but it's still annoying that way.

Quicken makes this easy

I really wish YNAB allowed custom reports.

# ¿ Jun 1, 2014 00:07

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Dantu posted:

So when do you fill in your budget? Say you get paid $2000 twice a month, spend $1000 on rent, $1000 on your car payment, and $2000 on groceries.

Assuming you aren't to rule 4 yet, would you budget $500 to rent and car, $1000 to groceries each time you get to paid?

I put my first paycheck of the month in before the month starts, so it shows all the monies I am budgeting for the month. I hope to be a full month ahead soonish; I could be now, but then I'd have to use some of my emergency fund to float it... And I don't like that idea. If you look at my YNAB today, you will see my June 6th paycheck in my 'fake account' and booked for income for June. If I feel like doing July's budget ahead of time, I would record my next 2 paychecks the same way.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2014 02:40

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Dantu posted:

So basically, the categories are like little virtual accounts, right? I've been getting really hung up on where the money physically is, for example I'd transfer to a savings account and it wouldn't let me assign it to a category unless I moved the savings account off budget, and I'd get frustrated.

If you have to call them virtual, you can. In accounting, logical and physical accounts are both considered accounts.

You shouldn't need to assign a category to a savings transfer. Just book $X in your budget to a savings category. For example, I have $x in my emergency fund category and $y in my moving/life expenses saving category, and they both live in my SmartyPig account which has a balance of $x+y. I never flagged the transfers as a category because the accounts all on budget.

I'm not sure that was clear, I hope it makes sense.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2014 18:32

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

spinst posted:

My HSA is employer funded, so I keep it off-budget and just manually do the transactions. Since it's reimbursement only, I just categorize the reimbursements as income.

For my FSA, funded by me, is also off budget. I contribute a fixed amount like you do, but I just do the transactions manually and don't categorize them. I only really pay for co-pays and prescriptions with it, so it's not a big deal to keep it off-budget.

My HSA is employer funded and I keep it on budget and over state my income by $x per period and budget $x per period into medical.

100 HOGS AGREE posted:

I don't bother splitting my paychecks up into my 401k because I'd have to account for all that money that's going to taxes and poo poo I'm not seeing anyway. I just give myself my net income for the month and make a separate inflow into my 401k. Same thing here, it's just easier.

I do track 401k, both personal and employer contributions. OCD :-/ I can't help it. Lol.

I keep 401k off budget and HSA on budget. I also contribute to my HSA sometimes, hopefully I won't do that in another year and a bit, once I have enough in there to cover my OPM (not the fun OPM, but rather out of pocket max.)

# ¿ Jun 10, 2014 01:10

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

tuyop posted:

No, we would budget a "buffer" line in month one, empty it in month 2 and distribute it among categories, and then refill the buffer on paydays in month 2.

The problem is that we have a buffer every month of 2-3k that can be borrowed from if we're weak.

Wtf? Lol. That's weird!

Old Fart posted:

Oh, so I didn't misunderstand.

Tuyop, get to step 4 already. If you have the money in savings, just do it.

I did it this month. I don't like seeing savings so much lower :-/ but that's cuz my savings was roughly 1 month expenses and I needed half of that. I should be getting a windfall in the next few weeks that'll refill the savings times a few. Having a proper efund (3mo ish post windfall) will be nice.

# ¿ Jun 13, 2014 23:04

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Gripen5 posted:

I having been using the trial for about 15 days. Liking it so far. Just noticed it is on sale on steam for 25% off. So It's $45. Tempted to pick it up.

I paid $15 at the start of last summer for it! Hold out a bit. Once you buy it from Steam, you can extract the key, uninstall, and install/register the regular version. This way, you don't have to have Steam wherever you may use it.

# ¿ Jun 20, 2014 02:46

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

100 HOGS AGREE posted:

You don't even need to do that, you can just run it from the folder.

I wiped my computer and I don't use Steam so having the key was FTW. Same with installing on my desktop v laptop.

Left of the Dial posted:

I believe I got my copy (which I'm using religiously now that I'm out of college; wish I had started sooner) for $15, which is a good deal.

I paid $15 last August.

# ¿ Jun 20, 2014 05:47

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Gripen5 posted:

Do you have to install steam to get the product key? It seems like you do. Just didn't want to do it on my work computer if I didn't have to.

Edit: Didn't seem like you could. I installed steam. Installed YNAB from steam. Then went to Help -> About where there was a button that said copy key to clipboard. Then opened up my trial copy of YNAB and activated it.

Afaik, this is correct. It was disappointing to me - but $15 was winnar. I installed steam, copied key, wiped computer, installed YNAB and have been happy ever since! (There were a few months between copying key and wiping computer, including a uninstall of steam as soon as the forums told me I could copy the key.)

# ¿ Jun 26, 2014 21:07

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Gripen5 posted:

Yeah, I bought it from the browser, just was disappointed I could get the key from it. Kinda silly in retrospect, but I am sure steam wants you to use their platform to encourage you to depend on them and buy all your stuff from them.

Yes. I'm sure that's it. Super annoying if you use 2 computers - I don't want to re log in all the time. And I haven't used Steam since ~04 so it was just a big annoyance. But saving $90 was worth it (bought my gf a license, but she uses mine cuz we share computers, so I have the license to my college aged sister for future use...)

# ¿ Jun 26, 2014 21:59

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Pinball posted:

I bought YNAB in the Steam flash sale, but I'm having a little bit of trouble setting it up. Most of the money I'm living on is a lump sum from a fund for my graduate school my parents cashed out, but I also have a part time job that brings in about 800 a month, so my income isn't really consistent. How can I set up YNAB to take those factors into consideration? Also, is there a way to connect it electronically to my debit card and credit card so I don't have to download transaction reports, or are those the only way to not have to manually enter in every transaction?

This is my biggest complaint with YNAB.

# ¿ Jul 2, 2014 20:45

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

LogisticEarth posted:

It's somewhat annoying but also saves them the trouble of needing to implement any kind of real security. Right now if someone gets into your YNAB, the worst that happens is they see a bunch of numbers.

True. It means I update quicken frequently and YNAB when I split a grocery bill or something, so once a week or so. Sometimes twice. I will eventually ditch YNAB now that I'm holding to my budget much better and also use Excel and a pivot table to summarize and calculate variances anyway. So so much faster than YNAB. But I love YNAB and how it all works - I just hate how much longer it takes w logging onto 3 banks websites...

# ¿ Jul 2, 2014 23:45

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

100 HOGS AGREE posted:

Why log in? just track the things as you do them in the mobile app it takes like 20 seconds.

I'll pass on keeping any sort of financial info in Dropbox, and plz try convincingly gf to track things as she goes... Haha.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2014 01:10

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

tuyop posted:

This except use mint if you don't want to log in and just want to double check your transactions.

If mint is unavailable for you

I hated mint back in the day, and mint is horridly unsecure. I've used Quicken since 04 for everything except budget, which was always excel pre-YNAB. I plan to bitch and use YNAB for the next year or more, because it seems to help me budget and I have some expensive goals

# ¿ Jul 4, 2014 03:17

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

It's not hard. You have a transaction like so:

Partner -300 total
Rent -500
Bills +200

I can post a screenshot later. This keeps everything straight in your budget and maintains correct tracking of expenses.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2014 17:08

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Your Dead Gay Son posted:

For splitting a category my gf and I are doing this thing where if she pays, she'll enter the full amount, and I'll enter half of if with a label and memo saying I owe her. We'll reconcile at the end of the month and see how it goes. First time trying it since we only just moved in together.

I'm extremely glad it wasn't a hard sell to get her to start using YNAB. She even had a lovely phone that couldn't install the app so she was just hoarding receipts for a while and entering them in at night. More disciplined than me. If I didn't have the mobile app I probably wouldn't do it at all.

I would add an additional cash account for those transactions on your YNAB, and then when you give her a check, make the check a transfer to the cash account. At least that has been easiest for me.

I wish my gf would enter/track on her own. She brings me receipts. Which works, nothing is missed, and she pays attention to how much she's spending vs the budget we set, but I wish she would be more involved. Oh well, her even paying attention to her spending at all is huge progress!

# ¿ Jul 9, 2014 19:28

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

T. J. Eckleburg posted:

Splitwise. In a 3-adult household where 2 of us share finances and 1 is independent, yet we want to divide all household expenses fairly... it's absolutely wonderful and saves so much time. Even in a 2-adult household I imagine it would be super useful.

I don't see the point, for when only 2 people are involved. Or 3, but that's just me. I use excel for that with my shopmates (3 of us split bills, but only 2 of us split power). Super super simple.

But if it works for you, and others, then that is what is key.

# ¿ Jul 12, 2014 01:47

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Knyteguy posted:

We're moving this month, and to do so we have to pay August's rent on the day we move (23rd of July). What would be the best way to do this? Put that we paid this second rent as the 1st of August and push the amount we need forward to August? Or should we just show that we're paying a gently caress ton on rent this month and then none next month?

I think the latter. It'll best represent your cash position.

# ¿ Jul 16, 2014 21:22

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

ilkhan posted:

I have a general interest/fees catagory that it would fall into, but your way sounds fine.

This is how I do it, too.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2014 22:34

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Your Dead Gay Son posted:

It would look prettier I guess.

It changes nothing. You're complaining about a problem you created.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2014 20:28

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Lanky Coconut Tree posted:

Yeah, I changed all my passwords immediately after that. Dropbox shouldn't accept any edits they make I hope. Thanks for that, I'll download my budget from Dbox.

Shouldn't you be safe with BitLocker and/or TrueCrypt?

IllegallySober posted:

They've committed to supporting it through the end of 2016 so "months" is not an accurate statement.

So late 2016, setup a Finance Tools VM and use that. Sounds good to me.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2016 21:51

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 03:21

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Lanky Coconut Tree posted:

Me being an idiot, didn't bother with truecrypt as it was a very new laptop

So it has BitLocker and no big deal? If it doesn't have w TPM, you should immediately wipe and install TC upon purchase. You don't want you data being easily stolen. And it's very very easy to reset non-encrypted HDD's Windows passwords...

# ¿ Jan 6, 2016 17:46

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