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.

Yep the chicken only has to last two days not three :)

Our chicken lasts 3 days, so you're doing ok

How many in your family? We have 2 adults, 3 sparrows children.

3 adults and 2 kids. Chickens are small here (1kg is a big one) so no way it's making three meals.

Don't mean to joke - we're lucky. It's just scary that we work hard, earn good money and still need to think about every penny.

The good thing about YNAB is it's now hit into both of us that we do need to watch the money. We're surrounded by people out here who think nothing of dropping £200 on 'brunch' but then we're surrounded by people up to their eyes in debt!

Only two of the adults plus the kids eating the chicken though. Other adult is our live-in nanny who cooks for herself (but we buy her food).

Oh no, a 1kg chicken is not going to do three meals

I started using the trial version 2 weeks ago - have watched the basic class and thought I knew what I was doing but with the end of Jan pay coming in (get paid once a month) it's not adding up!
We have a number of categories from auditing the whole of last year's expenditure (that was a fun weekend) and so I know how much to put into each so that we can pay monthly bills and save for the quarterly/rainy day bills at the right rate. When we got paid I put the income into on-budget accounts and then allocated it but it ran out before I put the 'right' amount into all the categories. I've gone back through with a calculator - the amounts I want to put in add up to 4k and YNAB says I've budgeted 5k. I budgeted all of Jan's income in Jan (but didn't spend most of it because most bills not due til later in year) there was nothing to carry over (positive or negative). I'm flummoxed. Any idea what I'm doing wrong?
And am I the only one doing this who doesn't feel in more control because of YNAB - we definitely have incomes larger than our regular outgoings (but want to save up for something big - hence microscope on budget this year) but I have never felt so stressed about money as the last week.

Hi SCCH

Ok...so there's a problem somewhere, isn't there?

Stupid question, perhaps, but did you have £4000 to budget? In other words, you had £4000 in this month?

YNAB can't lie, it's a spreadsheet.

Have you double checked the total amounts that you tried to budget?

Thanks for replying Lougle!

Have over 5k to budget (income to be budgeted in Feb) - thought that would mean all categories having their 'minimum' amount put in and some left over to put in 'saving up for big thing' category - but I've gone wrong somewhere!
I've just printed off our excel sheet so I can physically tick the amounts on paper in case I've missed something (maybe put in a category more than once on screen?). Am hoping I've mis-typed somewhere.

If I want to move money to an off-budget account ('saving up for big thing account') to make it 'invisible' to the budget, can I do that by recording it as an outgoing from our checking account and an income to the off-budget savings account? If I do it as a transfer it stays 'on budget' which is a bit misleading as I don't want to have it available to budget in the future (well, not unless there is a huge disaster and we need to bring all savings on-budget).

Sean, not that I'm an expert or anything, but if you budgeted all of January's income in January but didn't spend most of it, then you should have had a positive carry over - maybe your missing 1k? I don't know why it wouldn't automatically carry over though, that's what happened to mine. Did you try to start completely fresh with the money from your end Jan. paycheck, rather than letting it roll over? Or did you accidentally allocate the end of Jan paycheck as "income for Jan" instead of "income for February"?

Thanks for replying Mmmango. At the top of my Feb column I have 'not budgeted in Jan- 0, overspent in Jan - 0, income for Feb 5k, budgeted for Feb 5k.
The balance columns in Feb reflect the amount I put in to each category in Jan (but didn't spend) plus the amount I put in in Feb. ie. Water bill, 18(jan) 18(feb) balance - 36.

The bit I don't get is 'income for Feb =5k, budgeted for Feb = 5k but when I add together all the bits I have budgeted in Feb it comes to 4.2k...so where have I put 800 pounds. We have 3 checking accounts, credit cards which are paid off in full each month and a number of off-budget savings accounts so I'm hoping it's somehow been counted twice .

Once I've done the 'ticking on paper thing' I'm going to try zeroing all the budget categories in Feb and entering them again whilst watching the 'ATB' go down. Maybe that will find it :)

Just wondering, and you may already have thought of this - is it the credit cards? It was a huge thing for me to understand that in YNAB land using a credit card and paying it off each month is not good, because you are spending money you don't have yet. In effect, you make it twice as hard to get buffered because you are already a month behind. Now this is me, not you, and you might have already twigged all this. But a negative balance on a credit card will effect your ATB. Is that where it could be hiding?

Hi Ruby

My Categories are quite detailed, because we have money coming in each week, plus 4 weekly and monthly amounts (not a big total, but spread out)

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)

Link to the prerecorded session if you're in the UK - they tend to be on in our early hours

I started the free trial a few days ago and I love it. Am already horrified at how much we have spent on food. Detailing it all is a total eye-opener.

Horrified is good

I can completely identify with the horrified feeling. It was such a shock to find out that we were actually a lot worse off than I thought.

However, as it became clear that YNAB was a very effective tool for taking control of our money and digging ourselves out of the situation, the horror subsided. We are on month four, and I love it, even if it is stressful occasionally as our budget is very tight, and will be for some time yet.

Can I ask a question?

I get paid at the end of the month and DH in the middle. So I started the trial 1 feb budgeting my entire salary and what DH had left in his account ( not much as he had paid for a few expensive outgoings last month). So the budget looks really tight as effectively all out outgoings are against my salary. But by 14th we'll have another lot of money. Is that just how it works - so we should look at a couple of frugal weeks and that effectively is building up the buffer once DHs salary is added in? Or should I be doing it differently?

Hi Polycazalet

Yes, the idea with YNAB is that you follow the four rules. 1. Give every £ a job. 2. Save for a rainy day. 3. Roll with the punches. 4. Live on last month's income.

So, eventually the plan is that you live on last month's income, so your budget won't be tight because you'll have both salaries pooled to work with. However, that will take a while to build up!

So, the first rule is give every £ a job. For you, it sounds like the majority of the 'jobs' are in the early part of the month. That's fine. It's reality. So it means that you have to reign in any luxuries at the start of the month, then when your DH gets paid, you can pad out the categories.

DH gets paid monthly at the end of the month, but our tax credits are weekly and child benefit 4-weekly. So we split our bills down by the week, so that each Friday we can allocate the tax credits towards that week's bills and then at the very beginning of the month our major bills come out from DH's wages.

Just to add to what Lougle said - you only need to budget for expenses that you have to pay out before your next income. So (for example) if your rent is set to come out after DH's payday you could wait until he has been paid to budget for that. There's no need to have a really tight couple of weeks at the beginning of the month unless a) that's reality (as Lougle said) and there are bills that need to be paid before next payday or (b) you're trying to get ahead so you're buffered. I'm working on (b) at the moment but still have a couple of bills that I'll only budget for once I get paid mid-month.

That's really helpful thanks. Given we had a lot of expenditure last month two frugal weeks is not a bad idea.

Is there a way of putting dates on the outgoing expenditure?

Polly do you mean in the category headings?

I have listed all my categories with amounts and dates so I know how much is supposed to go out and when. So for example,

TV Licence, 1st, £12.20
Home Insurance, 6th, £xx.xx

Or, you can do as Lougle does and put it under the master catagories Week One Bills, Week Two Bills, etc. See her [post Mon 03-Feb-14 21:42:08

You can also add a note to a category. I use that to say x due on date.