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

523 replies

lougle · 22/08/2013 08:16

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.

OP posts:
Bollard · 01/05/2014 12:20

Thanks Smile. I think I'll give it a go. The crazy income stream is something I find difficult to manage, and as most of DH's spending is on cards I can see what's going on, even if I can't always control it! He's not necessarily overspending, just doing it without reference to any budget or system. And having a system that works well for our sort of cash flow, even if not used perfectly, is likely to be better than nothing at all.

trulymadlydeeply · 03/05/2014 09:54

Another dense question for you experienced YNAB people, if you don't mind.

I have just got a credit card. Used it for the first time this weekend and paid for the groceries on it. I followed the instructions from the video and the tutorials and transferred money on paper in order to cover the spend, so it came out of my groceries budget.
Then today I went to my bank and took out a bit more than the balance of the grocery bill in cash, and paid off the credit card transaction (the credit card is from a different bank) by pushing cash into the ATM machine.
Then I came back and added a transaction to YNAB to show the cash withdrawal, splitting it to show cash and groceries, and it's doubled up the grocery bill. But I don't understand how to reconcile the accounts now, nor what I've done wrong.

I love the YNAB and it's made me REALLY conscious of what we spend, but I find it terribly difficult to get my head around how to input figures.
Can anyone help? It's occupying far too much of my headspace!

Callmecordelia · 03/05/2014 13:51

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by transferring the money on paper?

I am a bit muddled by what you have done to be honest, so can I write how I'd handle this, and you can tell me what is different?

  • I would add the credit card as an account on YNAB, and would give it the account type "Credit Card".
  • I would log the transaction of buying the groceries for the exact amount on that account, and put the category down as "Groceries". For this example, let's say it was £50.
  • There would now be a negative amount on the Credit Card account, affecting my available to budget figure.
  • I would then take out cash. I take out (for example) £70. I immediately put £50 back in the ATM. I log TWO transactions like this:
£20 - Payee of Cash, category of Spending money £50 - Transfer (if you are in the mobile app, start typing "tr" in the payee box) from Bank account to credit card.

Does that help? I think I see now what happened - you didn't log the transfer.

Hope that helps.

trulymadlydeeply · 03/05/2014 14:55

Callme: can you move over to Dubai to be my YNAB real life friend? That has really helped.

I think I logged the transfer twice - once when I intended to do it, and then again when I actually did!
Come over to mine! I NEED you!
Next question for you: why am I so dense!?

Callmecordelia · 05/05/2014 11:58
Blush

Well, I do need a holiday.

Helgathehairy · 04/06/2014 12:35

Just an FYI that I've just discovered - YNAB is now free for students. DH is still technically a student so e-mailed them a copy of his student card and we have it free till 31/12/2014.

lilacclery · 05/06/2014 14:32

Got 25% off with this offer!
www.marottaonmoney.com/helpful-mobile-budgeting-tool-free-for-college-students/

Got tax back last week which is going to help build a buffer. We're paid weekly so hoping that I can work with previous weeks wages for now and then in time build up a bigger buffer, clearing debt is more of a priority though

KatyMac · 17/07/2014 11:51

Sorry - can DD use my version of this (if I buy it) completely separate from my bit or do I need to buy her a version for college?

Helgathehairy · 19/07/2014 19:47

katy I'm not actually sure. I think you can have different budgets but not sure if you can have it on different laptops. Your DD can get it for free anyway as she's a student.

KatyMac · 19/07/2014 21:13

I'm not sure she's up to it yet

I'm starting her on a weekly budget (she will only have 'that' much).....& need to train her to track it first (I think)

ishesingle · 20/07/2014 19:04

Katy Mac - yes she can install your version and as long as you sync it to the same dropbox her version and yours will be in sync with each other.

KatyMac · 23/07/2014 16:58

Thanks you

CoolCadbury · 01/08/2014 19:25

I bought my dad YNAB as a present, using my email address. Set it all for him including dropbox so that he can sync it on his iPhone. But somehow or the other, through dropbox, it's linked to my budget Hmm. Not sure how to unlink the two budgets. Can anyone help me?

Living · 31/12/2014 17:20

bouncing for the new year

Lyinginwait888 · 24/01/2015 19:42

Hello all - I'm going back to the beginning and reading the whole thread, but just wondered if anyone can answer (or cut and paste/link) my question please?

We get paid on 26th.

I have an excess in January's budget. I want it to roll over and start using febs budget.

I want the excess to now be available to budget in February. Is it not going to be available until Feb 1st?

Pusspuss1 · 03/03/2015 14:06

I am in the middle of my free trial, and I love YNAB already! Lurking with interest.

Glitterkitten24 · 26/03/2016 10:33

I know this is a zombie thread, but thought the advice etc on YNAB would still be relevant now!

Does anyone else use YNAB to budget?
Can you explain to me how I can make this work with seperate accounts- both mine and DHs salary are paid into our own accounts, and we both then transfer a set amount into joint account for bills/ household/ child expenses.
Is the transferring in/ out of money going to confuse matters?

zikreetdreaming · 29/03/2016 04:48

I fell of the Ynab wagon but have just started up again.

Several accounts are fine - DH and I have six between us. It's fairly easy to transfer between accounts as well.

Once you're disciplined in Ynab you don't really need all the account though unless you want them for other reasons. Example - we have a lot of money sat in my husband's current account that needs to be transferred to a Euro account (still being set up). Provided I sit it in a budget category then I don't have it as available to spend so won't spend it. That said, that relies on both you and DH bring on board with Ynab. If he'll go 'loadsa money in the account' and hit Amazon it won't work.

I live in a country where they freeze accounts on death (including joint accoubts) so DH and I will always have separate in case the worst happens to one of us.

zikreetdreaming · 29/03/2016 04:52

Urgh a million typos in that!

tribpot · 29/03/2016 07:16

Glitter - as zikreet says multiple accounts are fine. In fact the budget doesn't care which real world account your money is in, it just wants to know how much there is and what you plan to spend it on.

New YNAB handles credit cards in a slightly different way, I believe, to sort of ram home the message that debt is bad, which is highly annoying when you pay them off in full every month. Let's ignore that for now.

However, in your example let's say you and DH get paid £1000 respectively into your personal accounts and on the same day. When that money arrives you record it in the relevant account registers as 'income available this month' and then when you go to the budget screen it will show you have £2000 available to budget. If you transfer £500 from each personal account to a join account, you can record that as two transfers into the account register (so each account balance is now correct) but nothing has changed on the budget screen, you still have £2000 available to budget.

Then you allocate the money to budget categories, let's say £500 mortgage, £500 food, £500 household, £500 bills. Now as you spend things you record them in the right register (the account where the money is coming out of) and against the right category (so the budget knows which category to deduct money from).

So in this example, if your DH paid the mortgage and all the bills, and you paid for household and food, there'd be no need to transfer any money to a current account because the money is all accounted for in the accounts where it originally landed. In the real world you might want to continue to use the joint account as a way of having access to the right amount of money according to what the budget needs that month.

lilacclery · 29/03/2016 07:30

Marking my place

KathyBeale · 02/04/2016 17:12

I've got a problem with dropbox that I'm hoping one of you wise people can help me with. I set up YNAB a while ago, downloaded basic dropbox and all was well. My dropbox kept filling up so I was going to pay for it, then my husband said he already had an account so why didn't I just use that. Fabulous. Except, try as I might, I can unlink my YNAB from my basic dropbox and link it to my husband's super-duper dropbox.

Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?

catsofa · 28/08/2016 00:04

Sorry I have not RTFT.

I need this and am trying to input my details, but I can't figure out how to add my income, so stuck at a really basic step.

Google isn't helpful, most hits refer to an earlier version.

Can anyone tell me how to do this?

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