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That may be, but this simple software is what finally made he light bulb go off for me regarding what budgeting actually meant, and how credit cards were supposed to work. Plus, all the free videos and courses. I think it was $40 when it bought it, but for me, $60 would easily have been worth it, too. Home-made spreadsheets just didn't work for me.
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Jan 1, 2014 23:58
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 12:42 |
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100 HOGS AGREE posted: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. I Love Topanga posted:Side note, I've been using YNAB for about 6 months and love it. It's a game changer when you get to Step 4. Quoted for motherfucking truth. We got a month ahead about six months ago, and the difference is incredible. We've been able to weather unexpected poo poo (such as a debit card being compromised and used for $800) with no stress whatsoever. Getting a month ahead is the tits. Life is so much easier and less stressful now. 100 HOGS AGREE posted:a credit transaction hits your budget immediately and reflects itself in the amount of money you actually have available to budget in your categories. This was also an eye-opener for me. I used to view credit cards as being able to afford the minimum payment. Now I realize they're merely a tool for spending money that I already have. If it's not budgeted, then it doesn't get bought. Period. A credit card will never again be used by me to borrow from the future. I did and do find the "pre-YNAB debt" to be confusing, especially for cards still in use. It gets a lot easier once that's gone. Even still, when I started using it I only had a few grand left on my car note, so I didn't include it. It seems to make a bit more sense now, but for someone going into this fresh, I can see how it's confusing and frustrating. Power through!
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Jan 3, 2014 20:07
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Seems like a good spot for a brag post. This is what YNAB has done for us: Granted this is about 20 years behind schedule, but it's the first time in our individual or married lives that we've had this much in the bank. The graph is not wholly accurate, since we had some outstanding debt (car, taxes, personal loan) that we didn't categorize as debt. Those were finally cleared around June. And during that time we also planned for an expensive vacation, but YNAB helped us earn and put away enough to pay for it up front without credit cards. Then in August we had saved enough to get a month ahead (Rule 4), and it's been all gravy ever since. In December is when we stopped paying the credit card balance every week, since we learned that the statement balance is what's reported for credit scores. So that's why the red has shown up again. We pay the bill the day it comes out, because everything has already been budgeted. We still use debit for most things, since we like how it instantly shows on the bank statement, but we use credit for anything online since a debit card was compromised last month. Eventually, though, once we get a bit more comfortable, we should probably use credit for most things, since cards have reward benefits. We just don't quite trust ourselves enough yet, and everything always takes a few days to show up on the statement.
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Jan 3, 2014 20:36
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Lady Gaza posted:Anyone have any suggestions for how to budget with a payday near the end of the month? I get paid on the 25th so if I budget for rent etc. it puts me as over budgeted since I don't have enough in my account to cover the various transfers I'll be making out of my account on the 26th. When is your rent due? If not until the 1st, you can start using this month's income to budget for next month. It should be easy, since it will only require shifting your budgeting by a week. That's the ultimate goal of YNAB, and it's a great place to be. Until you reach that point, you shouldn't budget anything until you have the money in your account. So just leave things blank until you get paid. It's a bit of a hassle, which is why living paycheck to paycheck is a hassle, which is why getting a month ahead is Step 4.
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Jan 8, 2014 23:22
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Yeah, I would start by doing the rent transfer on the first, and don't pay any bill or make any transfer that you don't need to until the 1st. Then just keep saving until a point when you can log your entire paycheck as income for the following month. You can budget what you can into a "buffer" line item, and then the month you finally make the full switch, budget a negative number in the buffer category and log your paycheck as next month's income. Boom, now you can budget the entire month at once, done and done. It should be pretty easy in your case, since you only have a week of discretionary spending to absorb, and most utility bills tend to come due the first couple of weeks. Then once you get there, keep building an emergency buffer. I like to budget mine as its own line item. Old Fart fucked around with this message at 11:31 on Jan 9, 2014 |
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Jan 9, 2014 11:28
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How do people track stocks or mutual funds? Is that even within the scope of YNAB? I have an employee stock purchase plan, which automatically makes transactions every pay period, and I'm soon going to be setting up some RRSP and TFSA accounts. Any tips? I'd like for this stuff to be part of my net worth, because it's nice seeing that graph go up, but I'm not sure the best way to keep it updated.
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Jan 24, 2014 18:16
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Do you bother logging transactions made through paycheck deductions, or just do a balance adjustment every month or quarter? I suppose at the end of the day it doesn't really matter, except that I'd have a more accurate picture of how much of my actual income is going towards retirement and other investments. Since it's all been deducted automatically, I haven't been logging it as anything.
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Jan 24, 2014 18:53
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I have mine split into four sections: monthly bills, monthly consumables, quality of life, and savings. I'm also a month ahead, so everything gets budgeted at once. It took me a while to settle on a system I liked. Being a month ahead also helps me be more flexible during the month without stressing over the next paycheck. The monthly bills have almost all already come in, so those are budgeted to the penny. Anything extra gets zeroed out and dumped elsewhere (usually baby savings). Monthly consumables are things like groceries and medical and cats. Some of these zero out, but others accumulate. The main one to accumulate is cats, to handle emergency vet visits. Groceries are zeroed and added to savings. Quality of life are personal allowances, home improvement, restaurants, activities fund, vacations, etc. These categories roll over, but they're also the most flexible. If we go over in groceries, then maybe the vacation fund takes a hit. Savings is long-term goals. At least 25% is put in retirement and is never touched no matter what. Other savings goals might be touched, but as a last resort. When I zero out the monthly categories, overflow goes here. In the end, find a system that works for you. Before I got a month ahead, I was more inclined to let things roll over, since I might need that buffer if I came up short one week. But now everything is budgeted at once, so zeroing at the end of the month is effectively the same thing as letting it roll over and budgeting less for the following month. I just like the clean look of zero, and if I put the extra into savings for the month that's ending, then it's less likely to get compromised in the next active month, if that makes any sense.
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Jan 30, 2014 06:09
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It's easy to search for payees, if you want to see how much interest you've paid.
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Jan 30, 2014 08:04
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Yeah, that works. Something else to consider is just budgeting it in February right away. You can have the overage in January, but train yourself not to look at that, instead making sure the big number at the top of February is at zero. You seem like a good candidate to get to Step 4 of YNAB almost immediately, since you're used to getting paid near the end of the month. The bills you get during the month likely aren't due until the first or second week of the following month. Does your rent need to be paid on the 27th, or is it really due on the 1st? If the latter, then you really only need to save enough during February to cover your coffee for the last week, and then budget all those bills at the start of March. Then your February paycheck is marked as "income for March" and you budget it all at the same time. No doing partial budgets, no throwing into a carryover category just to subtract it a week later. Having your pay set as income for the following month is like YNAB doing the carryover for you. If your rent is truly due on the 27th, it's still probable those bills aren't due until the following month, right? In that case, see if you can save 33% of your rent for the next three months and put it in a "buffer" category, then when you have enough for rent, you can do the negative thing in four months. Step 4 of YNAB is a really great spot. It's so much nicer not to have to do partial budgets, and to allocate budget and pay all bills at the same time.
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Jan 30, 2014 11:21
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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. This is exactly the kind of thing YNAB doesn't want you to do, as it goes against the whole point of YNAB, which is to get us to stop spending to the bank account and start spending to the budget. You want to borrow from the future, which is against the idea of budgeting money you currently have, and against the idea of building up a buffer to start living on last month's income. That said, you're not the first person in the world to do that, although I wouldn't make a habit out of it. Demon_Corsair posted:If the money is a sure thing and you have enough in your account to cover it now, I would just enter the ticket into your budget, have the category in the red and zero it out when you get your refund. I'd do this. Or just wait until you get the money, and then buy the plane ticket.
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Jan 31, 2014 17:01
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If you're budgeting right, just pay the credit card when you get your statement. You don't have to do it every week. In YNAB, mark the purchase from your credit card account. Then when you make a transfer, mark that in YNAB. It takes two seconds. That way all your account balances are accurate.
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Feb 3, 2014 17:44
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Omne posted:There's a multi-step transfer that accomplishes balancing the account to the budget category and zeroing out the credit card balance. Your budget has nothing to do with your bank accounts. It doesn't matter if your spending budget has $480 left in it, and your savings account has $500. You spend to your budget, not to your bank account. This mindset becomes very helpful when your monthly budget is $3000 and your savings account has $15,000 in it.
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Feb 4, 2014 00:31
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What are the numbers that aren't reconciling?
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Feb 4, 2014 17:22
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spwrozek posted:I am to the point where I just keep all my cash on hand in my checking at this point. So my 6 month emergency fund is in my checking, who cares, it was doing nothing for me in a savings account. Up here in Canada, we get 1% savings! Woohoo!
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Feb 5, 2014 05:58
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spwrozek posted:Who actually uses a debt card? Use credit for everything. If your information isn't out there it is hard to steal it. 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.
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Feb 5, 2014 18:35
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Shadowhand00 posted:Doing it up front, prior to making the purchase, helps you put a check on the impulse thing.
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Feb 5, 2014 18:44
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How do y'all handle pre-paycheck contributions to retirement funds or stock purchase plans? These are off-budget accounts, yes? Do you add it as income in an on-budget account and then immediately transfer it? That seems convoluted. And if I go by my financial transactions, it doesn't split off my contribution and my employer's contribution, merely the total. What do other people do? In the end, the total value will be the same, I'm just wondering the best way to track it.
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Feb 6, 2014 17:19
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Thanks folks. I'm honestly not sure what of this is pre-tax or post-tax, since i'm new to Canada, but I have two accounts: an employee pension, and a stock purchase plan. It was only a couple of weeks ago that I even bothered to look any of it up for the first time. Out of sight out of mind. I did what you said, just marked it as inflow. Going through the pension plan, the online statement showed contributions and investment gains, so that was pretty easy to do. The stock purchase is a bit more complicated, as it only shows contributions and purchases, not investment changes. I can manually pull up monthly statements which give market value, and using YNAB's search function and transaction entry calculator, it's been relatively easy to type in the market value total from the statement and subtract the search total from YNAB, in order to have a monthly line item for the market value change. I realize these aren't crucial to the budget, but as we start to plan our family and future more carefully, it's nice to have this information at the ready. It also helps the net worth graph look prettier.  I also figure it couldn't hurt for reconciling numbers when I do taxes.
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Feb 6, 2014 18:13
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While we're on the subject of taxes... how do you categorize that? Would a refund show it as income from your employer? Just have a special TaxMan Payee? My OCD-lite twitches a bit, since technically there's been a TaxMan Payee every month, but I think breaking all that down is getting too crazy, especially considering all the contribution summaries are on paystubs and tax forms.
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Feb 6, 2014 18:20
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FWIW, I found the pre-YNAB debt thing to be confusing at first, too. Don't let it get you down. Once you push through, it all works really well.
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Feb 6, 2014 22:32
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These are off-budget accounts, but doing an income split would require reconciling every paycheck, or at least going through every stub from time to time. It's an interesting idea, and certainly looks sexy.
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Feb 10, 2014 17:17
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Much of my pay is in cash, so I keep a cash account. I used to do a lot of my spending in cash, and also rounded up. I felt that cash kept me more honest, while plastic was easily swiped. Plus I liked watching the cabs build up on the shelf. Hundred dolla bills, y'all. I was terrified of breaking the plastic seal. These days, with budgeting under far more control, I find debit/credit to be easier. I don't enter transactions as they happen, I just reconcile once a week. If I'm making an unusual purchase, I just check the budget to see if it's manageable. Also, our budget is pretty flexible. We do our savings goals first, and the rest can shift as needed without too much stress. Cash is mostly for personal spending money, and I don't track that, just note that I took $80 or whatever. And these days I don't even do much of that any more. Shifting priorities. It's also for the occasional outflow that can't be plastic. Taxi, tip for the movers, etc.
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Feb 13, 2014 16:57
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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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Veskit posted: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. Edit: whoops, a page behind.
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Mar 5, 2014 02:48
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Edit: ^^^ yeah, I was basically in that situation when I was forecasting out.Veskit posted:Isn't budgeting the next 6 months in YNAB effectively coming up with a poo poo goes horribly wrong buffer plan? Right now, if poo poo went wrong, my monthly budget wouldn't look how it does when poo poo is going right. But when I was on the edge of poo poo going wrong, looking many months ahead was very helpful, especially as the finish line got further and further away. For me right now, doing a YNAB budget that far ahead would distract me from focusing on the current months. I'd rather just have savings accounts. I have basic living expenses in different master categories from quality of life expenses, so it's easy to see at a glance how much I need for a basic six month slush find. But if it works for you, then go for it. When I did it, it was a nice security blanket and helped me see the big picture a bit better.
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Mar 5, 2014 03:21
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Henrik Zetterberg posted:Right now I categorized it as Medical, then the carry-over negative balance subtracted from my "available to budget next month." I plan to put a negative number for my emergency fund contribution next month to make up for it. Does that sound right? You can also click (or right click?) the negative balance and have it carry over to that specific category, instead of being subtracted from the overall available to budget.
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Mar 16, 2014 00:14
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GAYS FOR DAYS posted:Maybe this is something I should just keep on a note off of YNAB, but I'm managing our work softball team this year, and fronted the money for the whole team for registration (they would only accept one check per team). It was $450, $30 a person. Is there some kind of easy way to put this into YNAB, or should I just keep it written on a piece of paper somewhere and make a mental note that my actual checking account balance is going to be $420 (subtracting the $30 for my registration) than what YNAB is saying it is until I collect all the money? This way it doesn't affect your budget, but your bank balance is accurate.
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Apr 18, 2014 00:41
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How would y'all handle a one-off store credit card that is going to be paid off immediately and then likely never used again? We bought a bed, and they offered free delivery and pickup of the old one if we got their store card, because they think they're getting their claws in us or something. You can pay $70 and get a 3-month extension on the zero interest! And every six months they randomly select a customer and pay off their entire card! What a bargain! You can't afford not to spend more and then delay payments! This is not a card that will ever be in circulation. We might keep it open just to help our credit rating (we have one other low limit card which is paid off every month), but it just feels gross to add it to the on-budget accounts. I'm not sure I want it even wasting space in the off-budget accounts. Should I treat it as I would a utility bill?
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May 13, 2014 02:26
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Rule Four changes everything. Get to it ASAP.
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Jun 2, 2014 01:53
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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. If I'm not at Rule 4, then I'm doing a lot of juggling. It sucks. But one thing I do is cut back where I can and put as much as I can towards the buffer. I'm very strict with putting at least 25% of my income to buffer and emergency funds. Usually more. NEVER LESS. This gets budgeted before anything else, or at least before "quality of life" categories. Getting to Rule 4 (or is it Step 4?) is easier than you think. Rent is usually due first of the month. You budgeted June's rent with May's income. So that's already there. Just gotta save up enough to handle the rest of your expenses. And even with other bills, just because you receive it in May doesn't mean it needs to be paid in May. See what's not due until June. Boom, you're that much closer to budgeting a full month ahead. It's just so nice to have a big chunk of cash to budget all at once, and pay bills all at once. And you don't have to worry about overages, because even if you need to do some re-balancing, your income perpetuates the buffer. It's a whole different ballgame once you get there.
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Jun 2, 2014 03:22
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The big number at the top should be zero at all times. Every dollar has a job. At least, that's how most people do it. There are other ways to use it, but I recommend budgeting to zero as the easiest method.
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Jun 2, 2014 14:31
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An anecdote that may inspire people to get to Rule 4 as quickly as they can... A few months ago I had to take an emergency leave from work and lost a week's pay. This was at the end of March. Before Rule 4, this would have been a major hassle. I'd be counting on that paycheck for my groceries and utilities for the first half of April. And since I'd be at the end of the budget cycle and paying rent for April with my previous paycheck, then I'd be really strapped. Since it was last-minute, I wouldn't have been saving much. I've gone so long without using credit cards as a crutch, do I break that streak? It would just suck in general. But, I'm in Rule 4. So everything is great. Since this happened at the end of the month, it came in on an April paycheck, which means it affected May's budget. April's budget had already been earned. The money was already there. And since I learned of the emergency in early March, that meant I had two months to adjust budgets to compensate for the shortfall in May. And if push came to shove, I could have found a way to earn extra money in May, and then put off some May budget items until the first of June, when May earnings would be budgeted. That's what Rule 4 does. Living paycheck-to-paycheck sucks. Even if you live within your means, there's no room to relax and plan.
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Jun 3, 2014 15:00
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100 HOGS AGREE posted: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. If you think about it, Rule 4 is a month of emergency fund anyway.
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Jun 5, 2014 03:08
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Agreed. My view of Rule 4 is that it's a month's worth of regular expenses, available and budgeted at the first of the month. Everything earned that month goes to the next month. If you have the money in "emergency" but aren't living a month ahead, I say use the emergency to get a month ahead, since it's the same thing anyway, but one way is a lot more relaxing. My emergency fund accounts for stripping down a fair bit, so Rule 4 really puts me two months ahead.
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Jun 5, 2014 19:05
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Tuyop, could you elaborate? I don't understand a "big buffer category". Are you not using the "next month's budget" option when entering income?
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Jun 13, 2014 19:57
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That sounds overly complex and less easy to track. And as you said, the money "sitting there" is too tempting. Just get a month ahead, dude. Use your buffer for this month, put all income to next month, and you're done. It's a lot better, I promise. You've come so far, don't go backwards.
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Jun 13, 2014 20:25
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Now I'm confused. I guess I misunderstood.
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Jun 13, 2014 21:41
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Oh, so I didn't misunderstand. Tuyop, get to step 4 already. If you have the money in savings, just do it.
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Jun 13, 2014 22:48
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 12:42 |
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SiGmA_X posted:I did it this month. I don't like seeing savings so much lower :-/
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Jun 14, 2014 00:51
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