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.

That's true, Living but I like to see it in right in front of my face, iykwim.

BTW, if I recall rightly, I think it was Lougle who suggested on this thread about putting amount and due date on catagories.

Just marking my place in the hope that someone says if they see another flash sale!

Can I ask if it does deal with cash flow too?
Quite a bit of our purchases are made with CC, all paid on full the next month.
How does it show up?

I label everything in my DD/Standing order category like this:

• Mortgage (5th)
• Life Insurance (10th)
• BT (28th)

I then put them in date order so it's really easy to see what is due next and what's left for the rest of the month.

I then have a separate category for discretionary or frequent expenditure like groceries, petrol, other household etc.

I then have a final category for rainy day/irregular which is a mixture of monthly savings towards annual/quarterly/irregular bills like insurance, school dinners and energy and unpredictable/rainy day stuff like household maintenance

Lady - yes it can.

I have 2 budget accounts set up in YNAB - current account and credit card. When I make a purchase on the CC I put it in the CC account with the relevant category. It automatically gets put against that category in your budget so you know that money is spent/committed from your budget even if it's still sat in your current account.

Then when you pay off your CC, you just create a transfer between your current and CC accounts so it zeroes out your CC (or knocks off however much you've paid) and reduces your current account by that amount but as its already committed in your budget, your budget doesn't change. Your total remains the same, e.g.

Current Account = £1000
Credit card = -£800
Total = £200

Pay £800 on CC. Set up transfer between accounts

Current Account = £200
Credit Card = £0
Total = £200

Hi, yes, I think it's a really good idea to have lots of info in category titles.

So I have 'Council tax - 5th - £153' or 'Car tax - Due Sept/Mar - £20/mo' etc.

Thanks Mmmmango, I have just bought it at the reduced rate! There's still about 8 hours to go on Macupdate if anyone is interested.

Polly you can also schedule your transactions so that they re-occur every month: in your account view, right-click on a transaction and select "make recurring" and voila. You can also do that for new transactions by clicking on "schedule a new transaction" at the bottom of your account screen. Your transaction will then appear in your account on the same date every month. You still have to clear it manually though. HTH!

Lady. We started like this. YNAB's method is that you should only put something on the credit card if you have the money to pay for it. If you're not paying off the credit card in the same pay period as you spend on it YNAB considers that debt.

You deal with this by setting up the Initial balance on the CC as pre-YNAB debt. This wipes the slate clean and all new spending on the CC is budgeted for. You can then either chip away at the 'debt' by budgeting amounts against it or, if you choose, leave it there forever. As Greenmouse said YNAB doesn't care where your money is so you just make a transfer to pay off your credit card when you pay it.

We've just paid off this 'debt' and it's strangely liberating and I feel much more in controls. I used to hate any additional spending on the credit card because we've been in debt before and I worry it'll spiral out of control. This was always and issue as we have to put some payments on the card. Now I don't care where the money comes from!

That's interesting. We've used the CC as a way to budget. One CC for food, one for the rest and any expenses shows up which mean that I know exactly where the money has been spent. Otherwise we had lots if cask withdrawal and no idea what it had been used for!

Really need to look at it!

Lady - you could use a debit card so you still have that tracking ability but the money is gone instantly from your account so you're not living on money you don't yet have.

I buy very little in cash. Just spent £7 in the local supermarket - with cash I'd have probably spent the remaining £3 on a cuppa or magazine, but with it going on debit I don't actually have that £3 burning a hole in my purse so it stays in my bank account!

YY Living.

I am hoping this month to be aable to say that the credit card will all be paid off in this pay period. I have been paying chunks of it off earlier each month, and switching to another card that gives me cashback, but is prepaid so we are only spending money we already have.

It was a horrible shock to realise that our credit card spending was not wise. Although we paid it off in full each month, it masked our true financial position.

My goal is that when the salary comes in I can split the transaction, so that some can be put aside for income next month. I may do it this month! I hope so. We are being very frugal.

I do find a frugal week can really help - it's not so long that it feels miserable, and it can even feel like an exciting challenge. We had a fairly full freezer and larder from stuff not eaten at Christmas so resolved to spend less than a tenner on food last week and otherwise have No Spend Days to keep us within the already very tight budget I'd set for January (which was to help us get straight after the Christmas overspend and cover DH's period of no pay between is old job and his new job). I spent £9.72, on milk, bread, and a bit of fresh fruit and veg. We managed to not do any top ups and ate surprisingly well with what we had in stock. It meant we started February's budget straight rather than with an unbudgeted overspend on food and stuff keeping us in the red from Christmas. I might try a similar week (although perhaps with a little bit more of a budget!) at the end of every month to try and build a small surplus.

Oh no I don't understand the reconcile thing. Have been using YNAB for a few days and haven't reconciled yet. On the account page all the transactions are showing with a cleared button on the right - am I supposed to clear everything that has gone through the bank account?

You clear it when it's actually come out of the account. 99% of the time my transactions clear instantly so I tend to clear as I spend.

You don't have to reconcile. It's just a way of YNAB automatically adjusting for what you have against Whatcom should have. We're always a bit out, particularly on the cash accounts.

Thanks have done and it's fine. I need to do a tutorial I think.

Yes, the reconciling is just saying 'the amount in your bank account matches the amount that YNAB thinks is in your bank account.'

Am stuck. Reconciling DHs account and it's over £200 out. No idea what to do.

Another q - if you have an OD do you just add that on to the account balance. So say you are £700 in credit and have an OD of £100 do you say the a/c balance is £800?

Polly you either spend hours trying to work out why or just accept the discrepancy and make an adjustment payment!

Your account balance should be the actual money you have not including your overdraft.

Argh! I can't live with over £200 of discrepancy tho - it's making me worried about the whole process! DH also driving me bananas being slack about logging his spending which meant a difficult conversation about what had gone through his account. I can already see the benefits of this but I feel like he's not totally on board.

I struggle to live with a 50p discrepancy so get your point.

Probably stating the obvious but have you sat there with the bank statement and matched everything up? The flags can be useful here you can colour payments once you've crossed them off the statement. Ultimately YNAB is just a fancy pants spreadsheet - if it's not reconciled you've either missed a transaction, put something down twice or put something against the wrong account. Are you sure the balance was right to start with?

Assuming it's a bank account not cash you will get to the bottom of it even if the 200 is cash withdrawals and you never work out what it's spent on.

Your DH will (almost def) get onboard too. Hell if my 'whoops I didn't realise the credit card was paying off 10% a month not 100% for THREE YEARS' DH can get on board anyone can :)

I agree with living. I couldn't cope with a discrepancy, but it's impossible to have a 'true' discrepancy. It's either a transaction missed, or several, or wrong amounts put in.

If you do find that it's cash withdrawals you can't pin down, just create a category called dh's reckless spending 'miscellaneous cash'.

A few ideas (all happened to me until I worked out how to work YNAB properly!):

Did you use the reconciling button to match to DH's bank account on the same date, or are you just matching the current YNAB balance with the current bank balance? I often find I'm out on this and then when I check it's because I sometimes put things in on the date I pay them which can be different to the date it gets registered on the bank account so can be included in one balance but not the other if reconciling to a week or so ago.

Could there be a couple of payments waiting to go out which you have listed as committed and maybe even cleared but they aren't yet appearing on the bank statement? I sometimes find it can take ages for people to cash cheques so they remain uncleared for ages so my bank balance is higher than it should be.

Did you allocate something to his current account that actually went on a credit card or from another account?

Did DH say "I spent £30 in Shop X" and you have that listed as a debit card transaction but actually he paid with cash so you are effectively double counting a non-existent card transaction as well as a miscellaneous cash withdrawal?

I'd sit down with a calculator, pen and paper, start at the beginning making sure you have the same balance at the beginning, match item by item and then you will probably see at what point you have gone wrong.

I've just started on YNAB and I am hooked as well. I am the only adult in my household so it's easier to reconcile etc, and so far I am spot on. Main thing is not clearing transactions until they actually hit the back. I log into my bank app each morning while I drink my coffee, and if I see a transaction there I clear it in YNAB. Exception is cash withdrawals which I clear instantly. Working so far.

Made me notice my ex-H has not been paying me monthly as agreed for a school trip for my son, so that was a nice £100 bonus straight off! I entered my OD as it sat there on payday and I hope to eliminate that over 2 months.

Have budgeted a £50 car repairs fund and a £50 emergency fund for the first time ever! Eliminated the EF almost completely after a week with a vet trip for the pooch, but at least it was there to pay for it.

For the first time ever I think I can finally get to grips with my money - it is fab!

ishesingle - I hear you! My garden fence looks like it's about to die any day now - amazed it has survived this winter for so long! But for the first time ever, it will almost feel like it doesn't cost me anything because there is money already saved specifically for household maintenance rather than it having to be found from the monthly budget (which was never really budgeted before anyway!) :)

Have cracked it - went through bank statements and have worked it out. Basically a load of missing transactions from the turn of the month - went out in early Feb so the starting balances were wrong.

I now have another problem of being over budget without the figures adding up but feel loads better and back in control. I think part of it is both of us getting used to it and entering transactions in the same way - I hear what you say re: cash and entering the same figure twice.