YNABJ - Everyone needs one! - The Something Awful Forums

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

Shadowhand00: Jan 23, 2006; Golden Bear is ever watching; day by day he prowls, and when he hears the tread of lowly Stanfurd red,from his Lair he fiercely growls.; Toilet Rascal

Gothmog1065 posted:

Well, I finally got a hang on credit cards in YNAB. I'm actually eating the interest as part of my budget, so I can reduce the amount I actually "spend" on the card, and it kind of lets me track how much interest I'm accruing (too much).

When I had rolling debt, I was putting interest as a charge to the credit card and as a part of the same category and the PRe-YNAB Debt.

# ¿ Jan 23, 2014 22:09

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 22:08

Shadowhand00: Jan 23, 2006; Golden Bear is ever watching; day by day he prowls, and when he hears the tread of lowly Stanfurd red,from his Lair he fiercely growls.; Toilet Rascal

Gothmog1065 posted:

Huh, somehow I missed that as a category, is that only in accounts that you set up with a Pre YNAB debt initially?

Yeah, I believe that's the case. When you set up an account with pre-ynab debt, that becomes a category I believe...

Regardless, you can also have an interest category in your budget ( i think similar to what you're doing) so its just a matter of making sure you're properly accounting for it.

Mine just looked like this when I was doing that:

The interest was hidden from me on the budget but it was still a part of a huge budget item for me.

Shadowhand00 fucked around with this message at 22:22 on Jan 23, 2014

# ¿ Jan 23, 2014 22:15

Shadowhand00: Jan 23, 2006; Golden Bear is ever watching; day by day he prowls, and when he hears the tread of lowly Stanfurd red,from his Lair he fiercely growls.; Toilet Rascal

Veskit posted:

I'm going through the online tutorials on how to set up the credit card debt on YNAB, and the tutorial shows that you do interest by having it do an outflow and you see the negative on you outflows. Is it better to make a separate interest expense line item to budget to make it easier to track, or should I just stick to what they are teaching?

I just stuck with what they were teaching since you're goign to have to pay it off eventually anwyay. See the first posts on this page for examples of what it'd look like.

# ¿ Jan 30, 2014 07:30

Shadowhand00: Jan 23, 2006; Golden Bear is ever watching; day by day he prowls, and when he hears the tread of lowly Stanfurd red,from his Lair he fiercely growls.; Toilet Rascal

Are you getting a fantastical interest rate on your savings account?

# ¿ Feb 3, 2014 18:54

Shadowhand00: Jan 23, 2006; Golden Bear is ever watching; day by day he prowls, and when he hears the tread of lowly Stanfurd red,from his Lair he fiercely growls.; Toilet Rascal

Old Fart posted:

You're right, and more spending has gone to the credit card.

The reason it's not more yet is two reasons:

1) Debit shows up on the statement immediately, whereas credit takes a few days. We've only recently gotten good at budgeting, and this was very helpful when getting started. But these days we only reconcile once a week or so, so it's less necessary.

2) We've traditionally really sucked at credit cards, having no impulse control. That seems to be gone now, but I'm honestly a little afraid of slipping into old habits. I don't think that's a real big risk, but it's still a big step. Once we get used to using credit cards again, it seems so easy to relapse into "well, we can buy this thing because we don't really have to pay it off immediately..." I realize this is no different than spending from a debit account that has $10k of previously-budgeted savings sitting in it, but it just feels like breaking a seal.

Anyway, I no longer use my debit online, and in person it's all through the interac chip, so at least it's secure.

I used to have really bad impulse control and it flares up at times. The biggest thing that helps me though is ensuring that I register any purchase I make onto the YNAB mobile account, or immediately after I get home. Its a great way to really control yourself through the rules you set up yourself through your budget. If you REALLY WANT THOSE CORDOVAN SHOES, and you make that purchase despite all pretense of self control, you're still going to have to register that purchase into YNAB at some point an see how it damages the rest of your finances. Doing it up front, prior to making the purchase, helps you put a check on the impulse thing.

# ¿ Feb 5, 2014 18:39

Shadowhand00: Jan 23, 2006; Golden Bear is ever watching; day by day he prowls, and when he hears the tread of lowly Stanfurd red,from his Lair he fiercely growls.; Toilet Rascal

Old Fart posted:

It's not even that bad. There's no real risk of spending on the spot. The risk is more justifying a big purchase while at home. It's nuts, I know. And to stay on topic, YNAB has really helped this tremendously. It wasn't until using it that I truly understood that credit cards are tools for spending money already earned.

I wish I had this lesson punched into me earlier in life. Its so important for kids to know.

# ¿ Feb 5, 2014 18:45

Shadowhand00: Jan 23, 2006; Golden Bear is ever watching; day by day he prowls, and when he hears the tread of lowly Stanfurd red,from his Lair he fiercely growls.; Toilet Rascal

DrBouvenstein posted:

It's not so I can remember what the transaction/transfer is for, it's just because having to make two separate entries for one payment is annoying.

Right...we're on the same page here, but I'm just annoyed slightly I have to do this:

I don't see why I can't say that the transfer is ALSO a budget item. Because it IS. None of my current Visa debt is associated with ANY of my purchases/budget categories since using YNAB, so it's not like I'd be "budgeting it twice" like if I bought some groceries and other already budgeted items with it. To accurately plan my money and spending accordingly, I need a budget item for my credit card debt. It'd just be easier to make one line item to take care of it rather than two.

Are you using the ability to carry over your balances?

If you look what was being done here:

I basically had a bunch of money has pre-YNAB debt. over time, I would budget $X amount to repaying my debt and then repay that debt. The money is pretty much spent when you register it on your budget, particularly for pre-YNAB debt. You shouldn't have to double register a debt repayment if you're doing it correctly.

Its a bit more thorough here:

http://www.youneedabudget.com/support/article/credit-card-payments

# ¿ Feb 6, 2014 20:36

Shadowhand00: Jan 23, 2006; Golden Bear is ever watching; day by day he prowls, and when he hears the tread of lowly Stanfurd red,from his Lair he fiercely growls.; Toilet Rascal

DrBouvenstein posted:

Ahhh, ok, I see now. I didn't realize the "pre-YNAB Debt" areas were meant to have a budget in them...I guess now it should have been obvious.

However, after doing this...the "balance" in the budget area of my pre-YNAB does not equal the actual card balances, except for one:

It seems the couple transactions I had on the Visa doesn't change the "Balance" in the Pre-YNAB area. Shouldn't the charges show up there?
Here's the transactions on that Visa (I was incorrect saying I didn't use them at all)

So going back to that first image of the budget...the only thing that affects the Pre-YNAB debt is the initial amount, and the interest. The three purchases aren't there. I went through and marked them all "cleared," but that didn't change anything. It still shows that I have a "positive" balance of $29.73 on the Visa. The balance showing on the left hand side is correct, I still owe $36.94 on it (that reason for the random sized payment is because that was the balance my last statement.)

How do I fix this? Maybe that video on credit cards explains it, but I'm at work and cant' watch a freakin' 1-hour long video right now.

You're getting there. The others have explained it pretty well. Power through

What really helps with YNAB is to take their seminars. They're all very helpful and really get you into a good mindset for learning the software/budgeting rules.

# ¿ Feb 6, 2014 22:37

Shadowhand00: Jan 23, 2006; Golden Bear is ever watching; day by day he prowls, and when he hears the tread of lowly Stanfurd red,from his Lair he fiercely growls.; Toilet Rascal

HSAs no longer allow you to do some of the cool things you used to do, including buying random over the counter stuff at pharmacies. On the other hand, since it acts as another retirement account at 65, its a great little device for putting your money away and paying for your medical expenses. In order to stop paying fees though, be sure to have enough left in your HSA when you do have to spend.

Once you get past your expected deductible for about 2 years, you're pretty much always going to be in the green with an HSA from what I understand.

# ¿ Mar 14, 2014 21:21

Shadowhand00: Jan 23, 2006; Golden Bear is ever watching; day by day he prowls, and when he hears the tread of lowly Stanfurd red,from his Lair he fiercely growls.; Toilet Rascal

crimedog posted:

Sounds good to me. I keep my HSA off-budget, personally.

I keep my HSA off-budget and then reconcile the balance every month. That way, there's no need to do a transfer since all expenses coming out of that is basically Medical anyway.

# ¿ Jun 10, 2014 00:09

Shadowhand00: Jan 23, 2006; Golden Bear is ever watching; day by day he prowls, and when he hears the tread of lowly Stanfurd red,from his Lair he fiercely growls.; Toilet Rascal

Are anyone else's files for YNAB getting huge on dropbox?

# ¿ Dec 2, 2014 01:57

Shadowhand00: Jan 23, 2006; Golden Bear is ever watching; day by day he prowls, and when he hears the tread of lowly Stanfurd red,from his Lair he fiercely growls.; Toilet Rascal

Henrik Zetterberg posted:

23MB for 10 months of use between 2 budgets and probably 5-7 devices.

I figured out what was wrong with mine. I had 10-15 different budgets (from times wheN I'd use YNAB as a tool to teach my girlfriend/friends budgeting). Deleting those reduced the folder size significantly)

# ¿ Dec 2, 2014 03:36

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 22:08

Shadowhand00: Jan 23, 2006; Golden Bear is ever watching; day by day he prowls, and when he hears the tread of lowly Stanfurd red,from his Lair he fiercely growls.; Toilet Rascal

100 HOGS AGREE posted:

I do the former. I just reconcile every month on the last day to account for interest on my student loan and changes in my 401k.

So, I've been using YNAB for two years now and well:

I attribute much of this to this dumb software.

Congratulations!

# ¿ Jul 28, 2015 19:18

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