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.

Well the buffering's a weird concept, isn't it? If you get paid monthly in arrears (i.e. fairly normal for here but fairly unusual for the States it seems) you are basically buffered on the definition 'do you have money on hand to budget the entire month's expenses on the 1st of the month?' Although this does depend on you being able to leave this month's salary for the week or 10 days or whatever there is until next month starts.

By the true definition, the salary I've just been paid at end of Nov should remain untouched until 1 Jan, which is a big ask.

Quite - it's a goal, but a long term one. We've been putting all our spending on a credit card and paying it back every month for years now. The John Lewis vouchers we get pay for Christmas presents, and I am abit reluctant to stop. I have always been so disciplined about not letting a balance build up, and not spending the vouchers throughout the year that it is quite difficult to hear that I am "riding the credit card float" and have been doing it wrong. It didn't feel wrong, I thought I had been sensible! However, it makes the buffer even more difficult to get.

Yep - putting money on the cards is absolutely fine, but if you do it every single month you are never actually catching up.

I quite often make a payment to my cards every week. You don't have to wait for the statement to arrive. Even if you couldn't do that all straight away, could you make a goal of paying off at least one week's expenditure in the month it occurs, and then up to that two and so on? I don't like seeing a red balance on any of my on-budget accounts in YNAB, so that helps mentally in keeping the cards paid off.

I'm part way through my free trial of YNAB and really like it, and just found out by chance that it is half price today only - $30 rather than $60 so anybody trialling and liking it may want to purchase it today. I just did!

I've just read this thread and it's really helped with understanding buffering as that has been hurting my head a bit :) so thank you!

DH's salary hits our account on 18th and mine on 20th so I was thinking we only have to save our money for 10 days to 2 weeks to have it all available for the full calendar month, rather than having to save a full month IYSWIM. As most of our bills go out between 1st and 18th, it should be relatively straightforward to build a buffer for the last 2 weeks of the month as we spend much less in those 2 weeks anyway - just groceries and ongoing expenses rather than big bills really, so much easier to do austerity then for a couple of weeks to build that buffer. It would be nice to start a month with all the salary we've already received available in the bank, as it can be quite tricky managing when we pay down the credit card versus funds actually available in current account etc. (we put lots on the credit card to earn our cashback, and then usually pay it down in 2 or 3 chunks each month but have to manage when quite carefully).

So I'm aiming for effectively a 2 week buffer quite soon (by 1st Feb so we can start Feb with the money for the whole month available - figured 1st Jan is an unrealistic aim given it's hard to be austere on the Christmas grocery shop!). It will take a lot longer to be in the situation of a 6 week buffer - keeping say 18th Jan pay until 1st March. But I guess it's something to aim at.

We have big changes coming - a few massive expenses over the next few months, plus DH starting a new job on lower salary (but potentially much higher bonus eventually) in Feb and me due DC3 in June, and I'm finding YNAB is already a really good way of getting my head round it and making me less inclined to panic of be an ostrich about it.

Definitely good to have YNAB in place before your income and expenses change radically (and congrats on dc3) - but don't forget to budget for the massive expenses before they hit - this is more important than a buffer as you're not truly buffered if you can't sustain it regularly.

I'd be tempted to lay off the credit cards a bit whilst you're getting straight as well - effectively if you can't load them up with cash on the first day of the month, you're spending money you don't have. If you can load them with cash then maybe do that - the psychological effect of moving the money might be useful?

Ok I think I've got ny head around the credit card thing and have set up budget so that the monthly regular credit card expenses come out of thismonths budget and so we're not in YNAB world paying off the whole of last months credit card bill. I did a transfer tp cover the shift of money when we did in fact pay off in full (ie it will actually be new debt this month but shows as old debt if that makes sense)

I'm finding it really useful to keep track of spending. We are particularly tight this month as a) we hadn't budgeted for Christmas and so all presents need to come out of this month's income and b) timing has meant one of our biggest outgoings is doubled this month.

For various reasons we've had to put a lot of spending on the credit card this month and I'm loving the fact that I am counting this out of this month's budget - easy to lose track otherwise!

Yes - once you're using YNAB, all the money you spend this month comes out of this month's budget, regardless of when the money actually leaves your possession in the real world. If you haven't watched the support video on this it's worth doing, as the trainer reiterates that YNAB doesn't care where the money is, just that once it's been spent it's deducted from the budget.

I find it simpler to keep paying the credit cards off so that the budget and the accounts line up more accurately, but it's not necessary.

I guess you've got a category of 'pre-YNAB debt' for the balance on the card as of 1st of the month, which you can't pay off and pay for all the other expenses the card has to bear this month. So you are carrying a debt even if it doesn't feel like it. But you can now chip away at that because you know it's there.

It sounds like this is going to be a pretty rocky month for you financially - hopefully with YNAB you'll be able to see the real picture when the month ends so that you can adjust the budget to get back on an even keel in the new year. Do you have two months free of Council Tax coming up? That's always a useful winner for discovering some extra dosh to throw at the budget.

Yes, I think the biggest shift in thinking is that for YNAB, it doesn't actually matter where the money is at all.

YNAB relies on the allocation of money (ie. budgeting) not the spending.

For example, I've ordered our Christmas meat and I know how much it will cost. I won't actually pay for it until Christmas Eve, but as far as YNAB is concerned, that money is gone because I've committed to buy the meat and I've 'spent' that money. It will sit in the bank account until Christmas Eve, but I won't be looking at the bank balance thinking 'ooh I've got £x available to spend', I'll be looking at YNAB which will show £x - £y, because £y is already committed to the Christmas meat.

Once you're used to that, you can play with it. For instance, I have a savers account which I don't like to budget from in general but like to track. So I budget the amount of the balance in a category called 'savers account' and then that effectively removes that amount from the budget. Then, if I want to spend, say £20, I subtract that amount from the category, which releases it into the budget to be allocated as usual.

I have tried to reply 3 times and MN or my computer has swallowed my response each time now!

The big expenses are covered with savings, fortunately, so are in addition to the monthly budget. But we are slightly rubbish about managing current accounts - look at balance, lob a bit off for what we know is going out, spend the rest, realise we forgot to include the council tax etc. I like that YNAB takes you away from focusing on the current account balance and more on how the pounds are allocated. It means that it should be much easier to manage all the unusual in and outflows we're going to have over the next month or two, rather than risk spending it.

Your point on credit cards is very interesting and has made me think. As we pay down in full each month (never incur any interest) it feels like we aren't living off next month's money. But actually we are because we often (like this month) spend most in the first half of the month then wait for pay day on 18th to clear it down. This makes my immediate 2 week buffer plan even more important so we can start on 1st of the month knowing we have a full month's money already and can just pay down the CC as we go. And then the 6 week buffer is the next goal.

YNAB is really changing my thinking. We are fortunate to have a good income so that we don't have to budget to the penny. This means that we get a bit lax in any given month and we should probably be saving more each month to even out the tough months when all the insurance etc is due. Definitely changed my way of thinking for the better and only 2 weeks in to using it!

"It will sit in the bank account until Christmas Eve, but I won't be looking at the bank balance thinking 'ooh I've got £x available to spend', I'll be looking at YNAB which will show £x - £y, because £y is already committed to the Christmas meat."

This is exactly what I like about it and what DH and I need. We usually tally commitments in our head and lop an appropriate amount off the current account balance. And always get it wrong! This way we can ignore the current account balance and focus on what the budget says.

It really does make spending decisions 'real' as well. I remember reading the forums and people talking about that, with me thinking 'yeah, right.' But when you suddenly fancy Fish and Chips and you think 'ok, let's allocate some money to 'eating out'' but then you have to decide where you're going to take from it makes you stop and think.

Is the Fish and Chip meal worth having £15 less to spend on groceries? Is it worth having £15 less to spend at the theme park? Etc.

Before YNAB it was so easy to just hand over the card and not even think.

I like that YNAB takes you away from focusing on the current account balance and more on how the pounds are allocated.

Exactly - a lot of personal finance software is just about tracking, slightly retrospectively, what you've already done. Not planning. I think it must make an even more significant impact for people who don't get paid monthly, and therefore really are having to live pay cheque to pay cheque.

I wonder if we should have a 'no credit cards January' to see if everyone can get their bills straight so that there is no balance on the cards on 31 Jan that isn't funded from the January budget?

We don't have credit cards, but I think it sounds like a great idea

It is a tight month but simply because we didn't plan properly. Not in the UK so no council tax holiday sadly. We have a decent disposal income but have been living pay day to pay day because we havent been budgeting properly for rainy day expenses. Hoping YNAB will get us out of this - it's helping already.

I think we should be able to clear the (YNAB) debt on the CC next month but that will mean cutting down on the rainy day budget. Have to think about whether the right way to go as having that red line is quite an incentive to not spend!

Hopefully soon we'll get to the stage when I'm not tearing my takeout if I get paid a day later than usual

Hair out not takeout!

Yep - that's really the essence of the fact the budget runs on the calendar month. Being truly buffered would mean that it wouldn't matter if your payday changed from the 2nd of the month to the 28th of the month, you would still have the funds to pay for the next month. A big ask.

I always find the early Christmas payday very telling here - it does create some extra cash for those in need just before Christmas but in return for a very l-o-o-o-n-g month til the next pay cheque.

Well at the moment I'm paid on or around the 20th but not actually contracted to be paid until 25th so work could (at no notice) simply change the pay date. I'd be happier even if I was just buffered to cover that!

Anyone got any tips on getting DH into the YNAB way of thinking?

I have been taking it slowly with him, as got grips with it myself, but I have been stressing for months how we don't have much spare cash.

Yesterday I checked the credit card and bank and found £170 spent on my birthday, Christmas and anniversary presents. I could weep - I don't have that in the budget, and I had already coped with a £70 spend on Nespresso capsules. His attitude was "It's only £170, on stuff we'll use throughout the year, what's the problem?" I had given him a limit of £20 for my birthday, which was last Thursday. It appears to have been ignored. He doesn't keep receipts, and half of them are from eBay, so returning isn't an option really either.

When I tackled him about it last night and showed him YNAB, he seemed to get it. Any tips for making it stick? I was quite proud of how I dealt with it, and YNAB makes it easy to show lumpy expenses coming up. I was calm and just pointed out the facts, and tried to keep emotion out of it.

I think that, in a very non-judgemental way, you ask him to look at where the money to pay for the presents is going to come from in the budget. You can show him how you can carry the debt in the 'presents' category until it's paid down, but that means x off groceries every month, or y out of the holiday fund.

You can highlight also the fact that it's important to have 'fun money' in the budget so that every last roll of Polo mints doesn't have to be accounted for, but not to the tune of £170.

You can also encourage him to use the iPhone/Android app, so even if he's not 'doing' the budget, he can input into it and also see it when making purchasing decisions.

hi, YNAB sounds great - we always run out of money and never seem to know where it has gone... am I right in thinking you need the full version (£30 on steam I think?) and if you have that, you can download the free version for android/whatever?? Does it take alot of time to set up?

Yes, you're absolutely right.

Re. the setup, no. It can be used straight away with the suggested categories. Then you can change them as you see fit over time. So one named 'utilities' can be used to put all your electricity/gas/water bills in, then when you have time you can make separate categories for them and ressign each bill to those categories, etc.

Gah, gather I've just missed a sale on this. Wonder if it is worth hanging on till the New Year in the hopes of another...

Personally I'd crack on and buy a copy but I am already a convert, so I would say that :) You can do a 34-day free trial, so it might be worth having a go in the meantime?

I'm pleased this has reactivated as I have a probelm and wondered if anyone could help! We were doing v well, had bought it but have really come unstuck with dealing with DH's work expenses.

He has work expens each month and it can vary from £200 to, like this month, over £3000. There is no company credit card that he can use so it has to come from us and our account. I tried putting money in a DH's expenses category but as it's so random I can't really guess, also it's always paid back but not always within the same month. Dh suggested leaving it out as I was allocating big chunks per month to this section which was leaving us short elsewhere (expenses are for abroad trips, pales, trains and hotels so way beyond our normal scrimping and saving) but then it all started to go wrong as I couldn't reconcile the accounts.

I've stopped using YNAB at the moment as this is just causing so many issues, we've always dealt with it before by having a big interest free overdraft that we go into until expenses aree repaid but it's meant I never really know how much money 'we' have and then feel falsely rich when the expenses are repaid. I'd really like to get around this as wwe made so much progress in a couple of months that I could pay an unexpected large bill with ease, ok so it was the car / house insurance money I'd been saving but we still had it, which we didn't have this time last year!

Sorry it's so long but I really enjoyed feeling in control and am a bit cross that I can't see a way back to using YNaB at the moment.