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I love YNAB with a fervent passion. I convinced several people to buy it already and I tell everyone I know to buy it all the time. I really really recommend watching the videos they have on the website, and maybe even take a couple of the web courses. The main thing to get is YNAB isn't for forecasting and poo poo, you allocate the money you have to categories and that's it. YNAB tells you how you are doing right now. You can put in future income if you want, but it's not really how they recommend using it. It's simple software, but my budget is simple so it works for me. Six months ago I would't even have thought of having a pile of cash earmarked for a tattoo, or to put aside fractional portions of yearly expenses every month so the money is waiting when they are due, or to allocate a certain amount of money a month towards car repairs, even when I wasn't making them. I used to feel guilty when I bought things for myself, now it feels great because I feel like I am spending responsibly and planning for it in advance. I love YNAB, and when the next major version comes out and they stop updating version 4 (whenever that is) I'll probably buy it immediately. I'm glad I got it on sale last time it was 75% off, but in hindsight it is worth 60 dollars to me and I'd gladly have paid that amount now.  
100 HOGS AGREE fucked around with this message at 00:12 on Jan 2, 2014 |
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Jan 2, 2014 00:08
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 17:22 |
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I've been putting aside a bit every month for my motorcycle insurance that renews this year and it's fairly obvious but here's how I make big annual bills into manageable monthly ones. 1. Make a category for that expense. I put the total amount right in the category name and add a note for when the bill is due.  Now let's assume that I just paid my car insurance and the next bill is due a year from now. Don't bust out that calculator, you can do math right in YNAB! Pop 1650 in the budget box and then hit / on the numpad.  Holy poo poo a calculator. So just divide by 12 and hit enter and...  Wow easy. In future months just use the same amount. You can even use the lightning bolt icon up in the budget summary to autofill in the last month's values. This is really useful because it gives you a much more realistic view of how much it costs you to live every month, instead of having a month where you freak out because you have a one time expense. You can do this for non-bills too! Sit down and figure out how much you say, pay for car repairs in a year on average and break it into monthly chunks! Or maybe you want to save a certain amount for a vacation you're taking in the summer. Make a category and start putting money into it every month! Give every dollar a job, even if that job is a future expense a couple months away. That's Rule One and Rule Two of the YNAB method and it's really super important! At the end of every month your Available to Budget amount should be $0.00. All of it probably hasn't been spent but it all should be assigned to a category. Bloody Queef posted:How do people handle investments in the budget side of things? I get that you can add a line item under savings for "investments" but the balance of investments will change due to gains/losses etc. Is there a way to track that in the budget portion, or is that budget investment number (overall, not monthly addition) a made up number? 100 HOGS AGREE fucked around with this message at 20:17 on Jan 2, 2014 |
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Jan 2, 2014 19:59
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I didn't really deal with any pre-YNAB credit card debt (all my student loans are off-budget and they work a little differently than on-budget debt) but they got a tutorial video on how to set up credit cards and dealing with pre-existing debt mechanically here: http://www.youneedabudget.com/support/video/handling-credit-cards-in-ynab If you haven't I'd really recommend going through all of their video tutorials. clayburn posted:This is one of the things YNAB does on purpose that is a little confusing at first. YNAB does not try to be a forecasting tool. They simply want you to budget the money that you have on hand right now. You can certainly schedule your paycheck if you want for ease of entry, but this has the same effect as entering it manually would. Those funds aren't available until the date they hit your account. YNAB even gives you an option when you put in an inflow to assign that inflow to next month's Available to Budget amount instead of the current month. It's amazing how much less stress I have when I can sit down on the first of the month and budget out my entire month with money I already have. I could literally pay all my bills on the first and I would be ok. Hell, my paychecks could be a couple weeks late one month and I wouldn't even give a poo poo. 100 HOGS AGREE fucked around with this message at 21:19 on Jan 2, 2014 |
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Jan 2, 2014 21:10
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FadingChord posted:This is the only part that's really frustrated me so far. I carry a small monthly balance on my credit card ($200-$400) that I can always pay with a chunk of my savings account if everything were to explode; I also get paid regularly on the last banking day of the month. My balance gets automatically paid off the day before the statement is due on the 7th of each month. Am I just supposed to accept that I have $400ish less than I think I have now? If you want to wipe out that pre-YNAB debt category in your budget just allocate funds to it and then hide it and ignore it forever. That'll tell YNAB that even through you have a balance on your credit card, you've already budgeted for it (the money is in a different account, YNAB doesn't care about accounts for the purpose of the budget, just available funds) and you don't need to worry about it. If you've already allocated your savings a category in YNAB, just subtract the amount of debt out of that category and put it in the pre-YNAB Debt line instead. That will reflect the reality of your budget, that you have that money in savings but it is earmarked for your debt and thus it is unavailable for use for other things. 100 HOGS AGREE fucked around with this message at 21:57 on Jan 2, 2014 |
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Jan 2, 2014 21:48
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You can also win a T shirt or a free copy.
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Jan 3, 2014 00:06
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Yeah here's mine: If you see, since I'm fully buffered I can allocate all of January with no problem (since my income from last month goes forward to this month) As I get paid in January my inflows will get categorized as "Income for February" and then I can plan out my spending then, once I have the money. This means, now that I am thinking about it, since I get paid every other friday and my budget is pretty solidly based on two paychecks/month is that months like this month where I happen to get three paychecks the third one is entirely EXTRA CASH MONEY IN MY POCKET and I can jam that poo poo wherever the gently caress I want. Or I could push my budget out another half month and be that much more ahead. Being fully buffered rules and I really recommend doing it unless you're in crisis mode paying down high-interest debt. That phone balance I set to go forward was because I wanted to track exactly how long it took me to break even after I broke my cell contract with Sprint and switched to Ting. YNAB by default will subtract overspending from next month's budget but this was a special case so I made it carry forward instead.
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Jan 3, 2014 01:21
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LogisticEarth posted:Ok, so this month I budget funds for the December bill, but next month budget nothing as the money will have already been subtracted from other categories? If I allocate all the expenditures on the credit card's account page then the "outflows" column for February should read $0.00? Or you could just pay off the credit card right now and then start your budget with no credit card debt in it at all. Either would work. 100 HOGS AGREE fucked around with this message at 02:03 on Jan 3, 2014 |
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Jan 3, 2014 01:59
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Yeah that's exactly what I did when I started in July. I just made sure I paid my credit card off before so I wouldn't even have to deal with that nonsense. Looking back, my first couple months were rough, I went over budget every month until October when I got my poo poo together and decided to just pull some money out of my emergency fund to complete my buffer instead of waiting several more months to maybe finish it and also figured out my actual monthly expenses instead of guessing all the time. Since then it's been smooth sailing.
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Jan 3, 2014 02:19
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Better than mine. At least it's going up.
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Jan 3, 2014 02:31
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Steam sale is over in an hour and 45 minutes, last chance for MEGA savings if anyone is on the fence.
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Jan 3, 2014 17:17
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I have a budget category just for the overpayments because I wanted to track how much extra I'm paying every month in the reports easily compared to my total debt expenditures. But pretty much what everyone else said aside from that. I just reconcile all my loans on the last of the month to adjust the balance to include new interest.
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Jan 8, 2014 13:17
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There's currently some issue with dropbox in general, it's happening for me too, and my dropbox client on my computer is endlessly spinning. It'll get fixed eventually.
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Jan 11, 2014 22:25
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I just update my off-budget accounts with a reconciliation transaction on the last day of every month so my reports are all accurate. My loans have the same problem because they accrue interest.
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Jan 24, 2014 19:03
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I let almost everything accumulate and go into next month, and I adjust my allocations for the next month based on how much is already in a category. I'll move money around sometimes at the end of the month but I don't like the available to budget number to be anything but $0.00 in any given month. Besides, letting categories grow is part of the point of YNAB. I want my Vehicle Repairs category to get bigger every month for example because a lot of car repairs don't happen on a monthly basis but I still want to budget for it on a monthly basis. 100 HOGS AGREE fucked around with this message at 21:20 on Jan 29, 2014 |
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Jan 29, 2014 21:17
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Putting in an income transaction on a future date and not marking it as cleared will add it to your available to budget amount. You can do it, it's just discouraged by the YNAB method because a big part of the point is never accounting for money you don't have right this second, so you don't overextend yourself and start spending money you think you'll have and then what happens when you don't get that money? But if you want to there's nothing in the software that will stop you. Hell, you could put in all your paychecks for the rest of the year if you really want to. But I wouldn't. 100 HOGS AGREE fucked around with this message at 16:14 on Jan 31, 2014 |
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Jan 31, 2014 16:08
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Eegah posted:Buying a plane ticket next week. I just got my monthly salary and covering it from my checking account's side is zero problem, but from YNAB's point of view I've already given every dollar from my take-home a job this month. Your budget is a living thing, even if it's a hassle to shuffle poo poo around it's best for it to reflect reality as it is now than not. I move money around all the time in a bunch of categories as my actual needs change from what I thought they would be at the beginning of the month, or if I'm bored. Usually when I'm bored and just poking at my budget. 100 HOGS AGREE fucked around with this message at 16:22 on Jan 31, 2014 |
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Jan 31, 2014 16:18
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spinst posted:I have an FSA, which I contribute to out of my paycheck. Since I don't put money in it from my bank account, I have it as an off-budget account.
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Feb 3, 2014 16:40
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Omne posted:Scenario: I buy a book from Amazon, marking it on my credit card account as a hit against the discretionary budget. I then transfer funds from the savings account to the checking account, and then use those funds to pay for the book as a transfer from checking to credit card. That's exactly right, YNAB doesn't give a poo poo where the money actually is when you buy stuff and make categorized transactions, all the transfers are bookkeeping for you to keep account balances how you want them.
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Feb 3, 2014 17:08
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There's not really much else you can do if that's your workflow. You might be able to use the account number specific to the savings account to make the transfer directly from your savings to the credit card on their website maybe?
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Feb 3, 2014 17:31
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Yes but it can cause problems if too much money is in savings and not enough is in checking because you could inadvertently overdraft even though you technically have enough money to cover everything. Just leave any money that you spend in the short term budget categories in checking and put long term budget categories in your savings account and make transfers as needed, then don't worry if it's a little off cause there's usually plenty of wiggle room. That's what I do. And if you're fully buffered you should always have plenty extra floating around in checking anyway.
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Feb 4, 2014 19:19
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LogisticEarth posted:Really, if he's in the US there's no reason to keep anything but his emergency cash fund in a savings account. Interest rates are hilariously low. I've heard they're higher in developing nations, so disregard if you actually get decent interest. The interest rate on my savings account is 0.1%
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Feb 4, 2014 20:40
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The new purchases don't get added to Pre-YNAB debt because they are not pre-YNAB debt. They are post-YNAB transactions. View that balance aws how much you still owe to get your debt down to zero beyond any of the transactions you add now that should come out of your budget categories and already be accounted for in your (they should be easily paid off every month because you're only budgeting with money you have now, right?). Don't allocate the total amount of your credit card payments in Pre-YNAB debt, just the amount you are paying beyond the transactions you've already accounted for in your budget in other categories. 100 HOGS AGREE fucked around with this message at 22:02 on Feb 6, 2014 |
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Feb 6, 2014 21:55
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Frankly I'd just stop using the credit cards, unless you absolutely have to, until you pay them off and make everything that much simpler. Any rewards or whatever you're getting probably isn't going to match the interest you're accruing every month anyway, so just use your debt card for a while or something.
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Feb 6, 2014 22:04
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SiGmA_X posted: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.
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Mar 4, 2014 22:15
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Gothmog1065 posted:I think people handle it different. You could do a "jar" account and transfer the money as you put in, or I believe I saw one goon who rounded all cash purchases up to the nearest dollar for tracking purposes, then put the change in the jar and have a nice surprise however long it takes to fill it up. I rarely make cash transactions though because if I can put it on my credit card I'll do so. If I had to do quarters for laundry I'd make it a category instead of a budget account.
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Mar 5, 2014 16:21
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Oh man I don't remember where I posted it but someone bought YNAB with my referral link and now I have six dollars. Program's payin' for itself 
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Mar 15, 2014 15:04
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Put in the large expense in that category, then click on the big red negative number under Balance and select Subtract it from next month's category balance -> This will make the balance carry over into future months instead of subtracting from your available to budget.  Then what you'd do is just make uncategorized transfers from your checking to your credit card equivalent to the amount you budget for that category next month.
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Mar 19, 2014 14:36
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I only use it for that because I wanted to watch how long it took for me to break even after I soaked an early termination fee when I broke my Sprint contract and changed cell phone companies, even though I could have paid it off immediately. Otherwise I never use either because I never go over in a category and don't account for it by sucking money out of somewhere else.
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Mar 21, 2014 16:37
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YNAB is now free for currently enrolled College Students It's a special licence that only lasts until the end of the calendar year but if you're currently attending college that's super nice.
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Mar 25, 2014 19:29
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I just input mine as income, seems like the easiest way.
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May 29, 2014 14:16
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I just fill it in as I get it, starting with the most important categories. But it doesn't really matter cause you're not spending that money til next month anyway.
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Jun 2, 2014 02:25
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I was doing the same thing until one day in august I just said gently caress it and took half my savings to get fully buffered. I think it was a good decision, I just built the savings back up afterward.
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Jun 5, 2014 02:39
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If you pay the medical expenses straight from the account, make an on-budget account, add a $250 inflow to it every paycheck and categorize that inflow as Medical Expenses. It has to be on-budget since you can't categorize off-budget transactions.
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Jun 9, 2014 14:49
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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.
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Jun 9, 2014 17:49
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Veskit posted:What are the differences between a budget account being on or off anyway?
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Jun 9, 2014 18:15
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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. WAIT FOR THE DAILY DEAL. It's the summer sale, never pay the base sale price.
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Jun 20, 2014 02:08
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SiGmA_X posted: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.
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Jun 20, 2014 03:10
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Why log in? just track the things as you do them in the mobile app it takes like 20 seconds.
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Jul 2, 2014 23:46
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When I pay rent to my uncle I just have an outflow to "Uncle" in my rent category.
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Jul 5, 2014 13:42
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 17:22 |
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Yeah that's what I do to. If I'm taking a road trip the gas costs I consider an expense of the vacation, not part of my regular gas spending. Same with anything else I'm spending on.
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Jul 10, 2014 17:06
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