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.

Wow tribpot. It is worrying how excited that news makes me!

What else can the app do I don't know about...? Can you move money around in the budget somehow?

Husband and I have come to an agreement. For now he's just adding transactions on the app, I'm dealing with the budgeting for now. He read that link and found it answered his questions but stated "Thats not how my brain works". I informed him that using his brain we never had any money so now we are trying this way. And hence compromise was reached.

I really think once we have done a month he'll get it. Think it would be easier if all our money went in on the same day, as the way I understand it I will need to tweek budgets on hubbys pay day, then on my pay day, then on child benefit day etc. All new habits to get into

Yes, we have to deal with the budget weekly, because our tax credits go in weekly.

That's why I break down our bills into each week.

The basic principle is 'what does this money have to do until we next get money?'

So, on the first day of the month, around 2/3 of our bills go out. We allocate DH's wages to all of those bills, then left over wages, etc., get put against groceries, fuel, etc., then anything left over goes towards 'saving goals' such as Christmas, birthdays, etc. That's week 1.

Then, the following week, we have 5 or 6 bills. Again, we allocate for the bills, then distribute anything left over amongst the variable categories - groceries, fuel, then discretionary spending categories.

The third week is heavier - 3 biggish bills, so after groceries and fuel, we can pad out the discretionary spending categories a little.

The fourth week is very light, so we can save some back for the following month's week 1 bills, to ease the burden on the wages.

Then it all starts again

I bought this through Steam last Friday. I have it on my home laptop and my work desktop. I have set it up to Cloud sync to Dropbox but there is never a budget there when I try to reopen it. Today, on both machines, I got the error message that I need Adobe Air. I downloaded and still no budget. Where am I going wrong.
Please help.

BTW I have already tried uninstalling and reinstalling all apps. Still no budget. :(

KNITERIC do you have dropbox installed on both computers?

Well, I am finally up and running with YNAB. It's so addictive! But so much information to help me to become more savvy with my spending. Thank you lougle and tribpot for being so patient with us newbie users. Thanks, Lougle for posting your categories, it jogged my memory and realised I had not budgeted for swimming lessons for DS and uniforms and a couple of other things. Have added these on now.

My budget says I have over budgeted by over £500 but hopefully when I get paid, it will even things out. It's quite scary really thinking that I need to make sure I get that much money in doing supply. It's helped me think about what I also need to look for in a salary when I eventually, hopefullyget myself a permanent job I've only been looking for a couple of years.

NotAsTired you're welcome

The YNAB method relies on you only budgeting money you actually have. Once you start overbudgeting, you're using money you don't have and there trouble lies!

The easy way of knowing how much you need to be able to budget is to put the amount in the sub-category title. So, you might have 'rent - £400 - 30th' to signify that by the 30th of the month, you need that sub-category to total £400.

You really can't rely on your budget it you overbudget, because the reality is that if you spent all the budgeted money at once, you would be at £-500! Of course, if you have an overdraft that might be a situation you're quite comfortable with.

It might be worth going down your budget sub-categories and seeing which ones don't need to be paid until you get paid, then remove those budgeted amounts, until you are back to £0 ATB. It will get you into the habit of only give each £1 one job.

Yes I do. I have uninstalled and reinstalled both programmes in an attempt to bring it back to life. I have saved about four budgets now but my folders are empty. I have also checked that my Cloud sync is ticked. I've tried logging in directly through Dropbox and Dropbox.com. Nothing.
Where am I going wrong?
Please help

Ah, I see what you mean, Lougle I will do that from next month, for sure. But I really need to see how much I actually need as a whole amount, iykwim? I think a bit of reality check is what I need. I know it's not a great way to start off YNAB but I will stick to what I am supposed to do from next month.

Have you tried the Troubleshooting guide?

When you go into YNAB, click File>Preferences

Where does it say your cloud sync budgets folder is? Does this match your dropbox folder?

Kniteric - same problem here. Have given up trying to sync now and can only use the PC version which is frustrating

Please do raise a support ticket with YNAB if you are having problems with Cloud Sync.

I have done trib but they keep telling me the same thing which doesn't work

There's (now) a known problem with Dropbox, although this only started yesterday during an internal upgrade. Have you tried the steps suggested above to check the Android Dropbox app is able to sync with your PC?

I'm utterly confused again - I have a -£20 difference between my account balance & YNAB balance. This is -£20 in uncleared transactions. I can't get YNAB to show me anything about them though, when I click on it it just shows me a blank entry, so I can't work out if I have mis entered something or what. Not sure if I have explained that but hope someone can understand!

Then when I try to reconcile it tells me "great job! Your account is now reconciled!" & then it goes back to being off again

Firstly, JanePurdy, do you have the running balance column showing. If not, click on the + icon at the top right hand of the bank account page, and select 'running balance'.

Once you've done that, go to your online statements and find the most recent balance on a statement.

Check that your balance on that date is the same as the YNAB balance on that date, to give you a starting balance.

Then check that every entry in your bank statement from that amount on, has a corresponding entry in YNAB. If you find a £20 entry in YNAB that isn't in your bank, or vice versa, you've found it.

If it all tallies, and your bank shows you a 'recent transactions' screen which doesn't have a running balance, just make sure it does add up to what the balance says at the top of the screen.

It's only happened to me once, but YNAB and my bank account disagreed.

I spent about an hour checking transactions and drawing a blank. Finally, I added up the transactions since the last balance stated on my online banking, and for some bizarre reason, the figure at the top of the screen (the balance) was wrong and the actual transaction amounts agreed with YNAB!! It corrected itself the next day.

I'm not sure whether this might help - I find when I do a reconciliation that sometimes debit card transactions or deposits at cash machines get taken out a day after I've made them. If I have entered my transactions as I go along (which I do most of the time) while the totals may match, the dates don't exactly.

If the transactions are outside the date range when you are reconciling, then YNAB won't show them in the reconciliation screen. You may need to go into the normal account screen and double check there. That's where those missing transactions could be hiding.

I now never reconcile on today's total, I always go a few days back and reconcile on that one. I haven't really had any problems with reconciliation totals since doing that.

I've been through all my transactions & checked the balances & it just doesn't make sense I haven't missed anything. The bit that I really don't get it is says I have £20 of uncleared transactions but when I try to see those uncleared transactions it doesn't show me anything?!

Those of you who have an account for cash, do you link it to your on budget account or is it separate?

For example, if I take cash of £20 out of my on budget current account and I want to see where I spend my money do I create a separate budget account that has nothing to do with my first account? Or should they be linked?

You have two choices, NotAsTired:

1. Record the withdrawal as a split transaction, detailing each of the component spends that total your £20 withdrawal.

1. Create a dummy 'account' that you detail the spending in called 'wallet', for example, and record the withdrawal as a transfer to 'wallet' and then record the spending from 'wallet'.

The net result is the same.

What you don't want to do, is to record it as a withdrawal from your account and an income to the 'wallet', because then you'll look like you're spending more than you are and getting more income than you are.

Thanks, Lougle I quite like the idea of doing it as a split transaction because I can see where I am spending the money in my overall budget and it would come up in all the reports. But it does mean keeping a paper copy of the spends ( I don't have a smartphone) to input at a later time. But then it would be hard to see where my cash actually goes, if its lumped with the rest of the budget. Have to think a little more about this. Presumably, the dummy account is a new separate account that is not linked to the main account?

BTW, I am loving having control over my money and YNAB has made me really mindful of my spending habits.

That's great

Yes, the dummy account, or your 'wallet' would be a separate account, but it would be an 'on-budget' account, because you need to know that the money is available to budget, even if the spending is being done from your wallet.

If you transferred money to your 'wallet' account and it was off-budget then the money would quite literally disappear from your budget. Now, while it is no longer in your account (because you've withdrawn it from your bank account and put it in your wallet), it is still available to spend or save, etc., and therefore you need to make that spending decision in your budget.