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.

I sat through one of the classes yesterday so going to have another go at it today. I'm still a bit apprehensive about getting it wrong as I'm not good with figures and I don't want it to cause arguments between dh and I if I get it wrong.

ok, don't worry -Any of you. YNAB regularly saves versions of your budget, so if you get in a mess you can roll back half an hour, or whatever.

Flouncy -you had £90 in your tin, paid £116 from your account, then transferred £90 from 'savings tin'to your account, so in effect, you'd only paid £26 from the bank?

You're right that YNAB doesn't care where the money is. But you do! If that £90 is still sat in the tin at home, but in YNAB you've transferred it to your account, YNAB will show £90 more in your bank than you've got, and£90 less in the tin than you've got.

Noel, spot on. Go and take all those advanced allocations out. What you can do, is put the amount for each subcategory in the title. so, for e.g. my council tax subcategory says 'council tax, 5th, £130'.

demented, start small. make sure your starting balance matches the account. Enter your transactions one by one, making sure they're accurate. your available to budget amount will be the balance of your bank account (including anything spent but not cleared from your account)-anything already budgeted but not yet spent. Simple as that. So, if you have £100 in your account, but you've written a cheque for £20 and budgeted £10 for coffees, your ATB is £100-20-10= 70.

as long as you are only budgeting each £ once, you can't get it wrong!

Thanks lougle

I'm out all day now, but tonight I'm going to sit down again and redo. It's quite funny, I feel like I'm back at school- I have moments where ....yes- it almost becomes all clear....I can almost touch it....

....then no. I've lost the plot and buggered it up again

I won't give up!

Lougle. What a brilliant idea to put amount and date in sub-catagory. I will definitely use that.

I haven't been able to get going with YNAB properly yet. I downloaded the free version and then bought the product on steam and then...my computer died.

Can't you do similar with an excel spreadsheet?

Some of it, nkf. Suggest if you want to a compare and contrast you have a look at their videos, or download the software for a trial. I couldn't replicate all the features in Excel without more effort than I think is worth it long term.

nfk you could create spreadsheets that would do the same thing. You'd have to know excel pretty well to make sure that you didn't muck up formulas as you added/moved/changed/deleted categories and sub categories. You'd need quite a good knowledge of look-up tables to create the search function. Again, with the split categories function, you'd need to know how to set a macro to insert a field and to create a sum function in place of a value. You'd also need knowledge of how to create a slimmed down version on your phone, then syncing with cloud data, etc.

The original creator of the software/method has written a book, and originally it was a spreadsheet, which he showed to colleagues/friends as they were talking about money, and they said 'wow, can I have that?' and from there it grew and changed and was made into a programme, then features added, etc.

What do you guys do about cash withdrawals? Particularly if one of you is going to record each cash transaction (me) thereby negating the need to record the cash withdrawal as it appears on bank statement, but the other joint account holder is highly unlikely to do the same?

Two options (for the other joint holder):

-Either categorise the cash withdrawal in the category it's intended for (so if paying for fish and chips with it, 'eating out' for e.g.)

OR

-Create a category called 'spending money' or 'cash withdrawal'.

It doesn't really matter what the other person is spending the money on once it's gone from the account...it's gone. But if you want to track the type of spending you do, then you do need to categorise it.

It's personal choice.

You know there are android/iphone apps for smartphones? Encourage that.

Those apps are free, by the way! I don't want anyone to think I'm trying to get you to buy 'bolt-ons'.

I have the app for myself, but there is no way DP will use an app. He is a Luddite. I'm mostly worried about double counting actually where I have added in my £2.40 on coffee & then add it in again as a cash withdrawal if you see what I mean. Will just have to pay close attention!

Marking my place. We have a big holiday coming up next month so now is REALLY not the time for this but it looks really good for getting us sorted long term.

I have a separate account called 'Trib's Cash' and when I withdraw cash I record that as a transfer to my Trib's Cash account.

Then I just record cash transactions in the Trib's Cash account, assigning them to an appropriate category, i.e. bus, restaurant, school.

If your other half doesn't want to play ball, I would work with that for now; categorise his cash withdrawals as a transaction of category 'DH's Cash' in the current account, so no breakdown of spend. Ask him if he can limit his cash spending to make it easier for you to keep track of the electronic transactions via online banking.

If it becomes obvious after a few months that there's a black hole in the budget (i.e. you have to allocate quite a big wodge of money to 'DH's Cash' in the budget) this may encourage him to want to record that spending. Worst case scenario he keeps his receipts each day and you put them in (tedious but doable) - or if he has a smartphone, which it sounds like he doesn't, he takes a photo of the receipt as he's handed it, which makes it a bit easier for you to enter.

dementedma, I would try not to get too stressed about the budget, or maybe ask DH to double check your figures for you. However, there is something called patzer's formula (named after a YNAb forum poster) which enables you to check that your accounts all tally with the budget. It goes:

Total Category Balance + Available to Budget + Income Available Next Month = Sum of On-Budget Accounts

Here is a screenshot which one of the YNAB trainers posted to illustrate where each number is in YNAB.

Thanks for that trib.
I have put the app on my nexus but am having problems syncing it to the budget on my PC.

These are usually related to Dropbox - have a look at the support article. If in doubt, though, raise a support ticket - they are very helpful.

syncing is driving me nuts. Have the YNAB app on my android tablet and the dropbox but neither will sync this sodding software. I'm getting pretty disheartened with it tbh. The app tells me to go to the desktop version and choose File>Sync with mobile device. which sounds fine except the File dropdown menu doesnt contain that option!
In dropbox I can see a folder marked My Budget but it wont open or lead to anything.
I had high hopes for all this but looks like its back to pen and paper for me

also, using the link to the support article, it tells me to tap the sync method>cloud sync option but again, am not getting that as an option!

Have you raised a support ticket, dementedma?

The File-> Sync with mobile device option is what you used to do in YNAB 3 before they had Dropbox syncing, from memory. (The current version is YNAB 4). Where did you download the app from?

Is Dropbox itself working? So if you create a text file called 'test.txt' and add it to your Dropbox folder on your laptop, can you see the same file in the Dropbox app on your phone?

yeah, I put it on the forum but no joy so far. i renamed the budget "my real budget" on the pc version as suggested and that is not showing on my tablet apps so something must be wrong somewhere. i just dont know where!

When you go into YNAB, if you select File>Preferences....

A screen appears saying:

Cloud Sync: Activated (or deactivated)

Then there is a button which says 'Deactivate cloud sync' (or activate)

What does yours say?

It shows as activated and asks me if I want to deactivate.

Is your tablet linked to the same dropbox account as your PC?

As far as I can see it is, but I don't know how to check this. On the PC I can check account and it says linked to my email. I can't see how to check this on the app on the tablet. The help sheet thingh said there would be a tab to tap and check but there isn't. Or I'm just too stupid to see it!

On the tablet, try pressing 'settings' then scrolling down to 'accounts'. There should be one there for dropbox. If there isn't, then you need to add a dropbox account in there. Use the same one as your PC one.

Or, just open the dropbox app on the nexus, and make sure you use your PC dropbox login to sign in.