Does anyone use YNAB (You Need A Budget) and fancy a support/chat thread?

[lougle]

I've just got the trial version and I'm hooked, if not slightly overwhelmed. I'm currently in 'why is it asking me to budget so much money' mode.

I'm hoping that I'll really take off with it because it sounds quite life-transforming.

Right.

I dont understand though, why show me the future if I'm not meant to do anything with it?

It's just there, like a calendar is. An electronic calendar shows you right up until....I don't know.....2050 if you want it to. There is no intention that you would write something in a date in 2050 in 2014, is there?

Windows calendar goes to 2099 actually

Its DH who is having issues with it and I really need him onboard as money slips through his fingers. He cant understand why we can show febs outgoings but not income so at the mo it looks like we have overbudgeted but we really haven't.
We've signed up to a class (well, a recorded version as they are all about 3am) so hopefully that will help.

Umm....you shouldn't have any outgoings for February, because you haven't spent any money in February yet, as it's still January.

Why do you have outgoings for February in there??

Reading back to your earlier posts, and my reply, I wonder if you've misunderstood me?

When I said you could put in scheduled transactions, I meant just that.

In the accounts section, below the transaction list, is a section called 'scheduled transactions'. You can enter, for instance:

03/02/2014 'Santander' 'Mortgage' £750 'Monthly'.

That won't show in your account, and therefore not on your budget sheet, until 03/02/14, but you've 'set it up' today, on 07/01/14.

If you enter the transaction in with a date of 03/02/14, then it will show as an outgoing in the February column, today, which will show you as £750 over budget in February. That's not what you need.

Doodlekitty, you probably need to have a look at the article on forecasting. You shouldn't really be showing Feb's outgoings yet because you don't have the money on hand to pay for them, and/or you don't have to pay for them out of the money you do have on hand.

So your DH probably needs to be thinking shorter term rather than longer term (weird as that sounds). As well as your known monthly obligations for January you need to be putting some aside for annual or irregular expenses, so building up a positive balance in categories like Christmas, car maintenance, clothing, etc. After putting aside an agreed amount in each of those categories, as well as your monthly expenses, only then do you have 'fun money' on hand to spend before the next pay cheque. There's no borrowing from your future self possible - the money you have on hand is all the money you have.

That's a good point, tribpot.

As an example, I knew that I had to pay £253 in fees for swimming lessons this week. So, since September, we've been budgeting £22 per week in the 'swimming fees' category.

Then, when the bill came in, we had the £253 sitting there nicely, waiting to be spent.

Yes, this is YNAB's real strength for me. If you've got enough dosh to cover your mortgage and gas bill, marvellous - you can schedule those transactions, budget the same amount every month and basically forget about it. But planning larger expenses so that you don't get whacked by them when they turn up is what budgeting is truly for. Plus, of course, it stops you wasting money in the slower months when it appears you have more on hand - instead you can choose to throw more at the savings categories .. or you can choose to spend it, but you are making a thoughtful choice based on what's more important to you.

Living, the buffer thing is weird if you are paid monthly at the end of the month. Building up such a large reserve is not a 3 month challenge, unless you live like a Tibetan monk but earn as much cash as a banker. I thought the 3 month challenge actually related to the majority of YNABers finding YNAB had paid for itself in 3 months, rather than had built up a buffer in 3 months. Anyway, your real first goal is to make sure those final 10-11 days of the month are paid for out of last month's salary and not the one that's just arrived. Technically that makes you buffered even though it's not really the intent.

Maybe I've misunderstood thought three months was somewhat unrealistic!

Doodle you can also add notes to each line of the budget (both at the beginning and month by month). That's useful if you have planned expenditure that you can't pay out of the income you actually have. I'm sure this is fairly common at the beginning. For example I need to pay my car insurance by the end of the month.I'm new to YNAB so haven't been saving for it but I don't have enough in the budget at the moment to pay for it. I've got a note reminding me it needs to come out when I do my next budget.

Am probably going to end up paying it before then though as terrified I'll forget (no direct debits here!) and will just let it be an over budget that is taken off next salary.

In small town SE Asia, Living - no direct debits here either, have a debit card but only one place in town where its accepted, and avoid credit cards. So it's all cash, all the time!

Would anyone mind telling me what categories you have in "Everyday Spending"? I've tried to simplify, but still have food and non-food groceries separated out as we suspect that our food spending is ridiculous so want to try to track it. Currently have clothing in Everyday Spending but don't actually buy new clothes every month so maybe it should be in Rainy Day Funds instead? Am I overthinking this? ;)

Thanks for the clear options, lougle - as we decided we do want to know where money's going for a while at least, I want to track spending rather than just cash withdrawals. Do you think I could get away with not recording cash withdrawals, only spending, and then reconciling with the bank balance before the next paycheck comes in? (I.e. Withdraw $100, spend $30 on groceries, have $70 cash left: in YNAB record only the $30 on groceries. As the $70 gets spent, add it to the appropriate category.) Or will it not be reconcilable that way?

In other news, the Rainy Day Funds are already an eye-opener - so this is why we never actually save any money, even though we're doing okay - every month there's something we weren't planning for. DP helpfully informed me last night that we'll have megabucks due for car maintenance in a few months (I don't drive, he doesn't look at the money, clearly we need to communicate better!) so we've divided the amount by 3 and starting to save for that now instead of me having a heart attack in April. I'm sure we're still missing something, but presumably when it comes up we temporarily move funds out of the categories we did remember to cover it, and then we know what we need to replenish.

The tip about using the Notes functions and category names to include target savings or payment due dates is really helpful too, thanks! I'm finding this all strangely motivating...

Yes, you can only record the spending and it will reconcile, as long as you enter each and every transaction.

So your choice is to accurately record withdrawals, our accurately record the spending. If you're sloppy about both (I.e. don't record the withdrawal and don't record the coffee from Starbucks, the newspaper, etc.) then you'll find your account doesn't reconcile.

Mmmango you are so overthinking

You can have as many, or as few, categories as you like.

I break mine down completely, because I have a complex pattern of incomings, with some monthly, some weekly, some 4 weekly, etc., and a variable pattern of outgoings.

So my categories are:

Household Expenses
Groceries
Home Maintenance
Household Goods
DIY
Admin/stationery/computer
Car repairs
Birthday presents
Birthday parties/celebrations savings (for DDs)

Travel Expenses
Fuel
Parking

Social Expenses
Eating out
Spending money
Treats
Days out

Extra-curricular Activities
Swimming
Gymnastics

School Expenses
DD1 cooking money
DD1 school trips
DD2 school trips
DD3 school trips
School clothing

Week 1 bills
(All bills due week 1 as sub-categories)

Week 2 bills
(as week 1, but for week 2)

Plus master categories for Weeks 3 and 4

Termly/Quaterly/Bi-Annual bills

Personal Expenses
Hairdressing, etc.

Pet Expenses
Dogs and chickens

Rainy Day funds

Lump sum payment savings
(Aiming to save enough to start paying annually for insurances, etc., to avoid interest)

Then I have separate master categories for two other savings accounts, so I can track the balance in the budget.

So, as you can see, you can have masses of categories.

"I'm sure we're still missing something, but presumably when it comes up we temporarily move funds out of the categories we did remember to cover it, and then we know what we need to replenish."

Yes, that's known as YNAB rule 3: 'Roll with the punches'. You're never going to be completely on top of everything - you don't know in advance if your car will need repairs, for example, but by budgeting carefully and building up reserves, if you need to fiddle, the money is there to move around.

Yep, so the other strength of budgeting is that you can move money around in the month. So if you go over on groceries you can adjust the budgeted amount, but it has to come from somewhere. This is why it's really good to have savings goals which are named - borrowing from 'new TV' or 'summer holiday' is mentally very different from 'anonymous savings pile'.

Likewise if you find that you haven't saved enough for the car repair (although you'll be in a lot better shape than you would if you didn't) you can borrow from a savings category knowing it's a justifiable, and unavoidable, expense that takes priority over a new TV.

Thanks guys. I think we both misunderstood how it worked. Im getting there and I think he will after a month or so. We picked a bad time to start but Im sure We'll get there

That's the spirit, Doodlekitty. It does take a while to get your head around the method, and if you don't fully crack it in the first month, you'll still be doing better than if you hadn't tried to budget at all. Keep going, and keep posting.

Don't worry, doodlekitty, the software is virtually unbreakable and even if you do get to the point that you can't understand how you get the figures you get, you can do a 'fresh start' which keeps all your categories as you set them, but zeros out the budget/accounts etc.

Just start small. Make sure your starting balance is correct. Add transactions as they're made, budget your available balance as it rises. Then it should all take care of itself.

We still need to play with ours but at the moment have:

Groceries
Fuel, car sundries and taxis
General spends (this is our pocket small spend money we don't challenge each other on)
Medical (we will prob move this to rainy day)
Clothing
Household goods (meant as bigger things not detergent)
Entertainment
Kids classes
Nursery
Nanny salary

I'm also thinking of moving the school fees here from rainy day as we know how much we need.

When we take out cash we log it as a transfer from the current account to the relevant person's wallet account.Only really frustrating thing is you can't do a transfer on the app.

Sounds good, Living

It really is that flexible.

You could have just two categories - fixed bills and variable spending.

I don't know how you'd manage that, but I guess some people are minimalist.

True living...although I guess you could record two transactions - one as an outgoing from the account and one as an incoming to the wallet, with a memo that it is from the account.

Are you sure you can't do a transfer on the app? If I start typing 'Tr' in the payee field it lists 'Transfer: [account name]' one for each account. This is on Android.

Ps I'd give a lot to be out of this sandpit and in smalltown SEA Mmmango

Ooooh so it does, Trib....I never realised that!