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I like knowing exactly where everything's going so now I track my cash spending to the penny. Occasionally I screw up and miss something, but I think it's made me better at not blowing all my cash the second it's in my wallet because I've already written it off on YNAB.
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Feb 13, 2014 20:05
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Thanks guys in regards to reconciliation. I was actually clearing everything as I entered it in. I thought the green C meant the transaction had gone through. I was doing poo poo wrong.
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Feb 13, 2014 23:49
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Wait the green C is for reconciliations?
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Feb 13, 2014 23:50
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^^^^ It's to mark that the transaction has cleared the bank or card, that is, it's been confirmed, as opposed to "pending" or something like that. Day to day this really doesn't matter if you keep a bit of a buffer in the accounts being charged. But if you're broke, or your card is nearly maxed or something, then those pending transactions are more important to pay attention to.Suspicious Lump posted:Thanks guys in regards to reconciliation. I was actually clearing everything as I entered it in. I thought the green C meant the transaction had gone through. I was doing poo poo wrong. Technically, you're correct there. If you clear them as they go along, when you actually reconcile, all it will do is tell you if there's a discrepancy between the statement and the cleared transactions in YNAB. If there is, then go back and see where the problem is. If the numbers match, then you're good. After you confirm that the YNAB account matches the statement, it'll lock all cleared transactions up to the date of the statement. LogisticEarth fucked around with this message at 23:55 on Feb 13, 2014 |
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Feb 13, 2014 23:53
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Right! That makes sense. How does YNAB actually handle the discrepancy? I remember doing reconciliation once and it threw my budget out of wack and it made things confusing.Veskit posted:Wait the green C is for reconciliations? Suspicious Lump fucked around with this message at 03:14 on Feb 14, 2014 |
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Feb 14, 2014 01:26
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Suspicious Lump posted:Right! That makes sense. How does YNAB actually handle the discrepancy? I remember doing reconciliation once and it threw my budget out of wack and it made things confusing. Well you either find the missing transaction and add it, or it automatically enters an adjustment transaction that adds/subtracts from your income. You can then just reduce/add the money budgeted to one of your categories to make up the difference.
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Feb 14, 2014 01:32
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Suspicious Lump posted:Right! That makes sense. How does YNAB actually handle the discrepancy? I remember doing reconciliation once and it threw my budget out of wack and it made things confusing. Well that does happen to me and what I have been using YNAB for. Edit: OK I tried out the reconciliation and actually figured out how the cleared button works with it. Helped me realize I was off by a buck on one expense too so it's actually a pretty nice and intuitive feature when you know it exists! Veskit fucked around with this message at 02:58 on Feb 14, 2014 |
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Feb 14, 2014 02:46
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Can people critique my budget categories? I'm wondering how specific I should get for everyday expenses. Should I have a different category for eating out/market food/cash on hand vs restaurants/incidentals? MONTHLY BILLS Phone Internet Electricity Rent Parents EVERYDAY EXPENSES Groceries Fuel Restaurants Incidentals Hobbies Long Term Expenses Car Repairs/Maintenance Medical Health Insurance SAVINGS GOAL 50k Savings Goal Car Replacement Vacation
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Feb 17, 2014 16:08
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Suspicious Lump posted:Can people critique my budget categories? I'm wondering how specific I should get for everyday expenses. Should I have a different category for eating out/market food/cash on hand vs restaurants/incidentals? A few things that might be missing: Clothing, Gifts (Christmas, Birthdays, Weddings/etc.), Computer replacement/maintenance, Home Maintenance*. "Incidentals" is kind of a broad category depending on what you want it to cover. Generally I have mine broken up into "Spending money", "Entertainment", "Beer/Wine/Spirits" (separate from drinking/eating out), and a "Misc. expenses" for everything else. *You may not think you need a home maintenance category because you rent, but I've found that it still helps in case you need to pick up a new appliance, furniture, small repairs, etc. Also, I don't see a category for renter's insurance there. Get some if you don't have any. It's like $10/month.
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Feb 17, 2014 17:49
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For every day expenses, you can go as specific as it helps you plan. For example, if you ate out for lunch at work, it would make sense to budget that separately as a predictable expense. Does incidentals also cover fun money, outside of hobbies? I've got a "spending money" category that covers any small things I want like a book or whatever. A few more you might be missing, if they're applicable, besides what LogisticEarth said: car insurance, saving for moving/deposit, laundromat money, haircuts.
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Feb 17, 2014 18:44
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Suspicious Lump posted:Can people critique my budget categories? I'm wondering how specific I should get for everyday expenses. Should I have a different category for eating out/market food/cash on hand vs restaurants/incidentals? Car Registration Parking Online Services (that are not your ISP like web hosting for a blog or email, MMORPG subscription, MyFICO, Spotify/Grooveshark/Pandora, etc.) Software Purchases (Steam, Amazon, Play Store/App store purchases, etc.) Books (I use this for regular books and Kindle purchases) Tax Preparation Fees and Penalties (when you pull $20 from the ATM when you're out someplace, split the transaction. Put $20 in your cash account, and the $2.50 service fee in this category) Kenny Rogers fucked around with this message at 20:09 on Feb 17, 2014 |
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Feb 17, 2014 20:03
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LogisticEarth posted:A few things that might be missing: Clothing, Gifts (Christmas, Birthdays, Weddings/etc.), Computer replacement/maintenance, Home Maintenance*. "Incidentals" is kind of a broad category depending on what you want it to cover. Generally I have mine broken up into "Spending money", "Entertainment", "Beer/Wine/Spirits" (separate from drinking/eating out), and a "Misc. expenses" for everything else. quote:due to a change in our underwriting guidelines, Allianz is no longer able to provide home insurance in this area. We apologise for any inconvenience that this may cause. Cuddlebottom posted:For every day expenses, you can go as specific as it helps you plan. For example, if you ate out for lunch at work, it would make sense to budget that separately as a predictable expense. Does incidentals also cover fun money, outside of hobbies? I've got a "spending money" category that covers any small things I want like a book or whatever. Kenny Rogers posted:Categories that I'm using that I don't see in your list: Thanks everyone.
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Feb 18, 2014 02:57
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I think you have everything covered but here are all my categories: Home Expenses Mortgage Electricity Water/Sewer/Trash Cell Phone Internet/TV Lawn Home Supplies Maintenance Improvements Daily Living Groceries Personal Supplies Clothing Alcohol Eating Out Dry Cleaning Salon Student Loans Aspire Sallie Mae ECSI Great Lakes Extra Pay Entertainment Videos Music Movies Concerts Books Hobbies Sports Outdoor Recreation Heather Spend Parker Spend Pets Food Medical Litter Transportation Vehicle Payments Fuel Parking Repairs Registration Subscriptions Newspaper Sat Radio Insurance Auto Vacation Travel Lodging Food Rental Car Entertainment I don't break out my 401K and savings since I don't really see that money. Also taxes and insurance is rolled into the mortgage. This has satisfied me for the last 3 years.
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Feb 18, 2014 03:49
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Since we're sharing categories, here are mine. I've been using YNAB for a year and these work pretty well for my current simple financial situation (single, late 20s, renting). I used to have a lot more categories but I've been combining/condensing. Budget Accounts: Debt Student Loans (Pre-YNAB credit card debt also went here) Savings Goals Emergency Fund Vacation Monthly Bills Rent & Utilities Phone, Internet & TV Gym Netflix Infrequent Bills Car Insurance Renters Insurance Membership Fees Monthly Expenses Groceries Gas Household Goods Hygiene & Medication Clothing Haircuts Infrequent Expenses Gifts Medical Bills Car Maintenance Car Fees & Taxes Parking & Tolls Office Supplies Personal Fees Postage & Shipping Discretionary Spending Food & Alcohol Electronics & PC Parts Amusement Books, Games & Music Donations & Charity Poker Travel Plane Tickets Lodging Food Amusement Car Rentals Gas, Parking & Tolls Off-Budget Accounts: 401(k) IRA HSA Individual Student Loans I reconcile my on-budget accounts weekly, and my off-budget accounts monthly.
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Feb 18, 2014 23:46
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I just started YNAB this year, here is what my wife and I have setup: Monthly Bills (listed in order of when they are due) Car insurance Hulu Pet Insurance Cable/Internet Water/Trash Renters Insurance Netflix Proactive Electricity Gas Cell Phone Rent Adjustable Expenses (not actually adjusted that often, not sure why we call it this) Groceries Wife Gas Me Gas Wife Spending (spending money is whatever we want it to be, be it eating out, a bar, personal stuff. At the moment it's $250 a month each, sort of all like a catch-all category) Me Spending Business expenses (this one changes a lot. My wife makes a decent amount of money on Etsy, but it requires some expenses, we just mark them here and adjust the budget. I'm sure there's a better way to do this.) Yearly expenses (this is what we call those things that come up every so often, so we save an amount that we worked out for each based on what we spent on them last year) Auto (this covers maintenance, registrations and inspections, oil changes, and my yearly scooter insurance) Travel Family (to see our parents) Travel Fun (luxury type trips) Medical Teaching Expenses Gifts Savings Goals House New Car Debt Student Loan We're planning on adding clothes and haircuts, either to our personal budgets or a new item. Most likely new.
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Feb 19, 2014 01:04
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tuckfard posted:Business expenses (this one changes a lot. My wife makes a decent amount of money on Etsy, but it requires some expenses, we just mark them here and adjust the budget. I'm sure there's a better way to do this.) How much are we talking about here? If it's regularly significant, I would say just keep it off the family budget and treat it like a separate business entity, with a separate off budget bank account. Depending on how involved you get with it, she might want to only pay out "income" to your YNAB budget as it's available, and keep the rest as capital for future business stuff. Any "investment" in the business from your checking or whatever would be an outflow from YNAB.
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Feb 19, 2014 01:16
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tuckfard posted:Monthly Bills (listed in order of when they are due) I would hate to pay this monthly. Also don't you get a nice discount for paying 6 months or a year at a time? I save about $100 by paying for the entire year at once.
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Feb 19, 2014 01:57
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Monthly Bills Rent Car Payment Roth IRA Internet Phone Electricity Netflix Needs Groceries Gas Medical Haircuts Wants Spending Money Eating Out Clothing Gifts Savings Goals Emergency Fund Car Insurance Car Stuff Moving Expenses Vacation I'm currently fighting the battle of saving for so many things it feels like I don't have enough money to have any fun. My emergency fund is wimpy, my car needs a 60k service soon, I might be moving in June… But I also want to pay an extra 33% on my car payment each month and slowly build my Roth IRA and and and and 
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Feb 19, 2014 02:31
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spwrozek posted:I would hate to pay this monthly. Also don't you get a nice discount for paying 6 months or a year at a time? I save about $100 by paying for the entire year at once. Yes, about 5 bucks a month (at least). Just sort of got into the habit and didn't do it last cycle. Need to do it next time, though, and by then we'll have plenty of buffer for it. LogisticEarth posted:How much are we talking about here? If it's regularly significant, I would say just keep it off the family budget and treat it like a separate business entity, with a separate off budget bank account. Depending on how involved you get with it, she might want to only pay out "income" to your YNAB budget as it's available, and keep the rest as capital for future business stuff. Any "investment" in the business from your checking or whatever would be an outflow from YNAB. That was originally the exact plan when she started up last year, we were just awful last year and following through with financial plans (among other things, like combining our accounts). We're in the process of making that change, though. She'll have her business account that starts with xx amount of money, and at the end of each month, anything over that amount will get transferred to the main account as income. tuckfard fucked around with this message at 03:09 on Feb 19, 2014 |
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Feb 19, 2014 03:07
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spwrozek posted:I would hate to pay this monthly. Also don't you get a nice discount for paying 6 months or a year at a time? I save about $100 by paying for the entire year at once. I've got a (drat) good rate on 100/300/100 insurance, plus equal coverage with self-protection for the motorcycle (I went to my agent and said, "If someone without insurance SMIDSY/Left-Turns in front of me, and I leave the intersection in a helicopter, I want to be covered" - so that's what she got me for coverage the bike.), and the difference between paying semi-annually and monthly is a $2/mo. charge.
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Feb 19, 2014 07:51
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Kenny Rogers posted:Depends on the company, mostly. Same here, I have both our cars, plus renter's insurance through State Farm. The monthly charge was about the same rate, $1-2, with it directly drawing from my checking account. Having it monthly, easier to track, and no physical bills to worry about is worth the convenience fee in my opinion.
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Feb 19, 2014 10:47
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spinst posted:I'm currently fighting the battle of saving for so many things it feels like I don't have enough money to have any fun. My emergency fund is wimpy, my car needs a 60k service soon, I might be moving in June… But I also want to pay an extra 33% on my car payment each month and slowly build my Roth IRA and and and and Of course this is all within reason. If you're poor and need every dollar then you may need every dollar to live. Oh and you can always have fun without spending money. but I save a lot because I don't drink hehe.
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Feb 19, 2014 11:36
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LogisticEarth posted:Same here, I have both our cars, plus renter's insurance through State Farm. The monthly charge was about the same rate, $1-2, with it directly drawing from my checking account. Having it monthly, easier to track, and no physical bills to worry about is worth the convenience fee in my opinion. I forgot to include everything - also 2 cars, renter's and motorcycle in the same bundle. I was with Farmer's for years, but State Farm was able to get the Mini Cooper AND the M3 on the policy for $12/mo. less than I was paying Farmer's for just the M3. YNAB chat: selecting the right budget when I'm on my phone is irritating. It never seems to match the values that are in the desktop client, even when I've removed every other budget from my Dropbox Folder...
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Feb 19, 2014 20:32
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My Pearbudget subscription is about to run out, and I'm considering YNAB as an replacement. PB has worked fine for me for more than three years now, but it has seen zero development as far as I can tell and I'm falling out of love with it. Anyone with pearbudget experience care to weigh in on the topic, and give me a reason to make the switch?
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Feb 19, 2014 21:34
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Alright, you guys win. I've been using the YNAB trial for 3 weeks or so and I love it. It's basically a glorified spreadsheet, but it's really easy to use and makes it really easy to see where your money is going. I just purchased the full version. I do have a question though. I have a line in my budget to put $200 from my checking into my savings account each month. My checking and savings accounts are both "on-budget" accounts. When I do this $200 transfer, it complains when I assign it to a category. It apparently doesn't want me to use a category when I transfer between 2 "on-budget" accounts. I want it to show on my budget though. Here's what I mean. This is what pops up when I assign it a category:  And on my Budget page, this is exactly how I want it to show up as:  If I remove the category as it suggests, I don't get the -$200 in my Outflow for my MM Savings category and it doesn't look like I transferred the money. How should I deal with this?
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Mar 4, 2014 00:30
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Henrik Zetterberg posted:If I remove the category as it suggests, I don't get the -$200 in my Outflow for my MM Savings category and it doesn't look like I transferred the money. How should I deal with this?
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Mar 4, 2014 00:38
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Cuddlebottom posted:If that account is money you might spend, like an emergency account, just budget money towards it and let the budgeted balance accrue. Don't worry about it not showing up as an expense, because you've already accounted for it by budgeting it. As long as you don't go over the rest of your budget, of course This. Just let the money build up in the category, and don't log it as an outflow. If you ever need to withdraw money from it, you can enter a negative amount for the month, and it will add that money from the balance to your available cash. If you already have a chunk of change in the money market account, the first month's "input" into the account should be the balance of it. So Month 1 might have $10,000 or whatever as inflow, but Month 2 (and each going forward) will have $200, or whatever you put into it. Just remember to also log the transfer so your account balances stay accurate. LogisticEarth fucked around with this message at 00:47 on Mar 4, 2014 |
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Mar 4, 2014 00:44
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Holy crap, I don't know why I didn't think there was a demo. Definitely going to try it now.
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Mar 4, 2014 00:55
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Cuddlebottom posted:There are two ways to deal with this: LogisticEarth posted:This. Just let the money build up in the category, and don't log it as an outflow. If you ever need to withdraw money from it, you can enter a negative amount for the month, and it will add that money from the balance to your available cash. If you already have a chunk of change in the money market account, the first month's "input" into the account should be the balance of it. So Month 1 might have $10,000 or whatever as inflow, but Month 2 (and each going forward) will have $200, or whatever you put into it. Just remember to also log the transfer so your account balances stay accurate. I will use Cuddlebottom's suggestion #2. Thanks!
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Mar 4, 2014 01:05
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I'm having a brainfart. I'm still using my credit cards. I make a single payment to them (Minimum + Purchases). Is there a way to make them show up in my budget as coming out properly, or just leave it at a transfer and let the Budgeted column reduce the balance and just not have it show up in outflows?
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Mar 4, 2014 02:37
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Gothmog1065 posted:I'm having a brainfart. I'm still using my credit cards. I make a single payment to them (Minimum + Purchases). Is there a way to make them show up in my budget as coming out properly, or just leave it at a transfer and let the Budgeted column reduce the balance and just not have it show up in outflows? Why is there nothing in your outflows? When you buy things with the CC or get charged interest it shows up as an outflow correct?
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Mar 4, 2014 02:41
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Veskit posted:Why is there nothing in your outflows? When you buy things with the CC or get charged interest it shows up as an outflow correct? Interest would, but purchase are outflows for assigned budget categories.
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Mar 4, 2014 02:57
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Outflows for the credit cards should be what you actually pay when the bill comes due. If you're slowly paying off the balance with minimum payments plus current purchases, then any overrun should be forwarded to the category next month. Continue until the debt is done. You don't need to budget anything aside from the minimum payment. All other current purchases should have already been accounted for. If you're paying it off there should be a positive flow into the card balance over time. So, basically, just budget for the minimum payment, and if you're tracking the rest of the purchases on the card properly, it should all work out.
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Mar 4, 2014 03:03
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Old Fart posted:Interest would, but purchase are outflows for assigned budget categories. This is correct. The only thing that should show up in my outflows are the minimum payments and interest LogisticEarth posted:Outflows for the credit cards should be what you actually pay when the bill comes due. If you're slowly paying off the balance with minimum payments plus current purchases, then any overrun should be forwarded to the category next month. Continue until the debt is done. You don't need to budget anything aside from the minimum payment. All other current purchases should have already been accounted for. If you're paying it off there should be a positive flow into the card balance over time. 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.
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Mar 4, 2014 03:18
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Gothmog1065 posted:This is correct. The only thing that should show up in my outflows are the minimum payments and interest 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.
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Mar 4, 2014 04:06
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SiGmA_X posted:I think I get what you mean. Okay, That's how I was doing it, just wasn't sure if there should have been an outflow there (Just a negative outflow for interest).
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Mar 4, 2014 04:27
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LogisticEarth posted:This. Just let the money build up in the category, and don't log it as an outflow. If you ever need to withdraw money from it, you can enter a negative amount for the month, and it will add that money from the balance to your available cash. If you already have a chunk of change in the money market account, the first month's "input" into the account should be the balance of it. So Month 1 might have $10,000 or whatever as inflow, but Month 2 (and each going forward) will have $200, or whatever you put into it. Just remember to also log the transfer so your account balances stay accurate. Ok, I think I got this now. So basically, everything left over after budgeting gets dumped in to my MM Savings/Emergency account. On month 1, I put the original balance of my emergency fund, then for subsequent months, I'm basically putting "emergency fund monthly budget" = "my income" - "rest of my budget items"? This should make it so the top says "$0 available to budget", correct? Which should mean that every dollar of my income is accounted for in one way or another.  
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Mar 4, 2014 17:41
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Henrik Zetterberg posted:Ok, I think I got this now. Looks correct, just remember to also make the transfer from checking to savings, and log that transfer in YNAB. Also, for the first month you might want to also include your monthly input on top of the initial balance, otherwise you're skipping your savings input this month. So if you have $22,600 on March 1, and want to save $400 this month, then log $23,000 as the input.
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Mar 4, 2014 18:09
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Henrik Zetterberg posted:Ok, I think I got this now. Is that your emergency savings on top of having all your bills covered for the foreseeable future? This is just nitpicky because that's a good amount of savings, but I would try and go 6 months out with that emergency savings and assign that money to future dollars. It can give you a more accurate view of what your money is going to be doing. This is "step 4" of the YNAB method. IF you actually have gone 6 months out with the money, AND have that much in emergency money I'm guessing goons will have other ways for you to use that money besides have it sit there.
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Mar 4, 2014 18:13
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Veskit posted:Is that your emergency savings on top of having all your bills covered for the foreseeable future? This is just nitpicky because that's a good amount of savings, but I would try and go 6 months out with that emergency savings and assign that money to future dollars. It can give you a more accurate view of what your money is going to be doing. This is "step 4" of the YNAB method. That's basically my "oh poo poo I got laid off but still have a mortgage to pay" fund. Should I be splitting it into two categories: 6-month emergency fund and savings? quote:IF you actually have gone 6 months out with the money, AND have that much in emergency money I'm guessing goons will have other ways for you to use that money besides have it sit there. I actually am planning on opening up a Roth IRA to dump $5500 in for 2013, then start investing anything over a 6-month emergency fund with Vanguard funds. Or something. I actually just added another category for Roth contributions.
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Mar 4, 2014 18:31
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