Last chance to buy YNAB before it moves to a subscription model

[tribpot]

Many of us are big fans of You Need a Budget and around New Year we tend to get an influx of new starters as people decide to take control of their finances - very sensible.

YNAB have just announced that YNAB 5 will be released tomorrow and via replies on Twitter have confirmed it will be a subscription-based program, so you will pay a certain annual fee like you do with Microsoft Office etc nowadays.

If you have just bought YNAB 4 and want to upgrade, they will give you a proportion of a year's subscription for free, but today is the last day you can buy a subscriptionless version of YNAB. If you were thinking about buying in January and don't fancy paying a yearly or monthly subscription, act now.

The subscription will be 5 USD per month, 50 USD per year or if you sign up before 31 Jan, a lifetime discount of 10%, i.e. 45 USD per year. At 30 quid a year, i.e. £2.50 a month, I'm happy that this represents good value for money for me, but I suspect this will be quite controversial and I wanted to give MNers a chance to avoid the charge.

I don't think the very short notice has been deliberate to prevent news of the subscription fee leaking out - when YNAB 4 was released they had a hell of a time as they released it before the iPhone app had been approved, and then had an agonising 10 days of Apple basically going tra-la-la what's that you say about a global launch until they finally released it. I suspect they have been waiting until the app was approved but then need to launch as soon as poss.

I should say, we were all expecting to pay again when YNAB 5 came out - just not to pay and keep on paying. Many people are extremely aggrieved about that.

trib - I get what you're saying and you're right. I don't go into the red during the month because the income coming in is more than enough to cover the bills, but yes, I've always done it that way and acknowledge that it's not really in the spirit of YNAB!

What I need to do is get to a point where I have enough money in there to pay bills a month up front (old money rather than new) but somehow I never seem to get to that stage, we just live month to month. I remember when I first started using YNAB I had a buffer category but I stopped using after a few difficult months. I think you're right, I should budget everything into the red to focus my mind on saving enough to cover everything.

So another way of looking at it is that you're budgeting too early. Again, part of the 'only budget the money you have' thing is only put money against those bills which need to be paid before you next get paid. Which in you case, assuming you have a small surplus at the end of last month, means budgeting one week at a time, on a Monday when DH's wage comes in. Bit of an arse, I definitely like just budgeting for the month and then cracking on, but I've seen it done in YNAB where you have master categories of 'Paid in first week of month', 'Paid in second week of month', etc. Here you could just budget in master category 1, leaving the others blank, or in all of them and you would see that week 1 was green, weeks 2, 3 and 4 red, and start working down the list to get towards all the budget items being green.

Worth a thought - I've said upthread I think if YNAB really has changed the way it handles existing credit card debt, the 'sea of red' factor is going to be very psychologically off-putting, esp for new starters.

I've done an Evernote note explaining the 'Income for Next Month' problem - with pics.

Furry, when we started with YNAB we were putting all our spending on credit cards and then paying it off when we got paid in full. It was incredibly hard to get to the stage we are at now, where DH is paid on the last day of the month and I put the entire salary into next month, which means I can set the budget in advance.

I started by splitting his income between the current month to cover red categories and gradually increasing the amount I paid forward to the following month. I switched to paying money towards the credit card several times each month, and I put the groceries on a prepaid card so I got cashback. I cut unnecessary spending drastically. We had a couple of lucky breaks too.

It was worth it, I managed it by August 2014 and then our income unexpectedly decreased in April 2015. Our standard of living has stayed about the same. Despite the reduction in income, we are in a stronger financial position, and that's entirely down to YNAB and following the (old) four rules quite strictly.

Btw, someone on the forum has come up with the name for our rival product: ENAB2 - Europeans Need a Budget, Too.

Founder of YNAB is doing an AMA on Reddit at the moment which might be interesting. I'm Jess Mecham, founder of YNAB, and this is a sleep-deprived AMA

Cordelia, I was thinking a bit more about job expenses. I don't think an off-budget account will work, because it still takes money out of the budget. I think it will need to be an on-budget account. Say it's called 'Job Expenses'. DH stays in a hotel and records a £35 outflow from the current account (he's stayed in the Premier Inn, very frugal). Instead of record it thus he records it as a transfer to the fictional Job Expenses account. Because the money hasn't left the budget, no category is needed. When the expense is reimbursed, you move it back into the current account.

Hmm, except that won't stop you from budgeting that 35 quid in the period when you actually don't have it. On the other hand, that's what the 'turn to the right' arrow did. Made the money available to budget when you didn't actually have it.

Btw mileage I assume you treat something like I do, and record it as an info not as income but straight into a category that's something to do with the car, e.g. repairs, replacement, blah blah. Must check you can still do that, record money directly into a category.

So Jesse was asked specifically if our subscription would be lower to reflect the lack of bank integration. Got an answer that was as close to 'fuck you' as I think he would ever get. The question made reference to the fact the YNAB staff are nowhere to be seen on the company's own forum.
Link in case the pic isn't readable.

Not very au fait with YNAB but re business expenses, you could have an on budget account called business expenses, with, let's say £1000 in it.
I'm your budget screen, make a category called business expenses and have a subcategory called "buffer" or whatever, and budget the whole £1000. That way it won't show in available to budget.
Then have a subcategory for actual expenses. If the expense is £100 you manually move £100 from the budgeted amount in "buffer" to the actual expenses category.

Overall the category will always have £1000.

Hope that made a little bit of sense?

I do that but it's a savings category. Couldn't work out any other way to keep longer term goals /money that's my safety net separate from everyday income etc.

I think I see what you mean, Bluecarrot. Although for a savings category, you can just let the category balance build up, can't you? Let's say you put aside £100/month for a rainy day, just bung £100 in your rainy day category and don't create any outflows in that category - voila, at the end of the month you still have the £100.

The thing with these business expenses is we want to carry the temporary loss from one month to the next without it interfering with our available to budget, because we know the money will arrive back shortly. Strictly by the rule book you should 'only budget the money you have', which means not budgeting the money until it actually comes back to you. In an ideal world, Cordelia's DH would have an actual float from his company plus they would pay his hotel bills, but here we are - that is rarer and rarer nowadays.

So let's say total Available to Budget is £1000. £300 goes on rent, £700 goes on groceries. DH spends £50 on a Premier Inn (very frugal, excellent for business). Now there is only £650 for groceries. But we know that in the general swirl of money in real life, enough money will slosh in and out of the account so that Cordelia and Mr Cordelia will not have to eat value pasta for a week waiting for this expense to be reimbursed (NB I do realise that a grocery budget of 700 or even 650 buys quite a lot more than value pasta!). Yes, if the credit card companies all suddenly called in outstanding debts immediately rather than at the end of the month, this £50 would not be available and so it shouldn't exist in the Available to Budget. But they won't, so it's convenient that it does, esp as it isn't 50 quid but actually large multiples thereof, Mr Cordelia graciously subbing his company wedges of cash on a monthly basis.

So, we want to record the £50 but also not lose it from the budget. I do think some kind of fake transaction to balance it back to zero is needed. I need to read this forum thread to see if I've got it!

I wrote a long reply, but essentially Trib nails it. I note in the AMA Jesse seemed to hint that they would build a system specifically for work expenses, as I think a lot of noise has been made about this.

Blue - If you want to keep your longer term money separate, then you could do what I do, which is to keep things in off budget accounts. My budget is only for money I intend to spend at some point. It includes some very long term goals, eg, savings for DD, but the buffer and our rainy day funds for if something really goes up shit creek aren't available for me to play with in the normal course of budgeting. If something does go wrong, or the unexpected happens, or something a bit more expected (I'm having a baby in March, and we need some things for it) then I'll transfer in some off budget money.

Similarly, if I want to put some cash in our pensions for example, then I record it as a transfer, and the money is gone from our budget, but still in our assets and on the net worth report.

So on the AMA Jesse responded on how best to make feature requests

Seriously, just write into help@ with the subject line: Feature Request.

And here's a tip, talk to us not about the solution, but about the problem you're trying to solve.

For instance, with the "red arrow to the right" thing, You could say, "bring it back!" But that feedback isn't nearly as helpful as, "I've always used YNAB to track who owes me what, and the new YNAB makes it more difficult."

It helps tremendously in keeping us focused not on a specific solution, but on the larger problem and when gathering and collating feedback, makes the feedback really useful.

For those of us in IT, this means write a user story with a value statement but anyway, don't worry about that.

However, those of us with experience of how user stories get implemented (drop kicked into the bin in the corner if the devs don't fancy doing it) may still take heed.

Just thinking about feature requests I would submit. I'm not going to include reports as I know they're coming, otherwise that would be number one.

1. Work expenses solution. If not the red arrow, then a dedicated solution for expenses you know will be reimbursed, and therefore should not affect budget.

2. Running balance. I can't imagine reconciling without it.

I might crack and sign up for a trial, and try and migrate some data into it. Personally I'm not bothered about "check numbers" (Americans seem to really still use cheques don't they? I didn't really realise that until now) or future dated transactions, mostly because I don't tend to have recurring payments that I know will happen and discretionary expenses in the same category. I find that a bit of an odd way to do it tbh.

Just a quick one to thank trib pot for answering my questions.

I wish we hadn't stopped using it now as I've forgotten it all and will need to spend a while getting my head around it again!

Krisskross, all the tutorials, videos etc for YNAB4 are here - classic.youneedabudget.com/.

It's a bit hidden, but none of the support materials have gone away, so I hope that helps.

Not at all krisskross, keep asking. I suspect there will be other newbies and returners in the next few days, so fire away.

Good spot on the support materials, Cordelia. Glad they're still available.

Looks like the nYNAB mobile apps don't work if there's no wifi or mobile data signal.

cordelia, just picking up on this one - I tried the new Android app in flight mode today and it seemed fine. You can't create future-dated transactions using the app at all, not a major issue but other than that it seemed happy to queue up transactions until it could connect.

Brilliant, must have been a glitch with the launch issues. I'd only seen that on the YNAB forums tbf.

Furry, how did you get on with dating future income for today but leaving it uncleared? I am finding being unable to put this month's income in the worst part of the new format... It won't be affecting those that already work with a month's salary in hand, but for those of us that are trying to get there, it's a disaster. I mean, I put all of my month's planned expenditure in at the beginning of the month, and ynab4 let me out in all my expected income as well. I really don't want to have to actually physically budget every time we get paid (dh is on 14 day cycle, I am bi-monthly, so our income is easy to plan for but happens at different times every month.)
nYNAB is making me crazy... (To add insult to injury, I have somehow corrupted my ynab4 - it reads differently on both my phone and iPad, whereas it has been working perfectly until yesterday. Gah. I've erased it and reloaded twice on iPad - phone is correct, iPad bonkers - but it still isn't synching so I am being forced to start fresh on nYNAB)

I'm not planning on activating the bank links. Jeffrey already splashed my password over tinter-net....

That's interesting madwoman. I saw in the AMA that Jesse said that he feels like they have "doubled down on the method" rather than introduced limited flexibility, and the entering of future income is where I can sort of see what he's talking about. It's very strict isn't it - one of the good things to me about YNAB4 was that there were so many ways of accomplishing money management. This is absolutely making you budget only the money you have, ie the YNAB rules.

Have you checked DropBox is working on the iPad? Could be a problem there, rather than with the YNAB app.

I've cracked and started my trial. No migration tool as yet. Hopefully it will be here soon.

They seem to have been silent on the migration issue (on the live status page at least) for nearly 24 hours, very bad practice.

madwoman, is the iPad looking at a different budget file? I have had problems (relatively often, actually) with Dropbox just stopping sync, but in that case the difference is that the Macbook is more up-to-date than the phone, not that the file just looked crazy.

I can't find any way round the problem of not starting the month with a full month's expenses on hand already, other than putting all the income in uncleared on the first of the month. The only other way I can think of doing it, again using a kludgy off-budget account, is to 'loan' your budget a full month's expenses at the start of the month, then as your pay cheques arrive, you transfer them back out to the loan account, aiming to leave it at slightly more than zero, which is you building your buffer slowly but surely. I still can't work out if I mean off- or on-budget, will have a play. Or as the pay cheques arrive, keep changing the value of the fake loan on day 1, until you can eventually make it zero by the end of the month, and then delete it when you reconcile the account.

Where you've got a future-dated expense, you can put this in and it will be taken account of in the 'inspector' window on the right hand side, I will do an Evernote showing this.

The bank links aren't applicable to us in the UK anyway, unless you (a) have a NatWest account and (b) you want to give all your security details to Finicity, almost certainly in breach of the Ts and Cs of your account.

I can't see anything changing about nYNAB and the handling of the lack of income on day 1 of the month. In essence YNAB 4 didn't encourage you hard enough to buffer, although again I wonder whether it will become too daunting if people have got to budget every time a pay cheque arrives, or create some horrible workaround that could go wrong. I don't like the answer "make everything a setting" but here I can see a case for 'strict YNAB' and 'loose YNAB' (maybe with some kind of indicator at the top showing you're not following rule [x] as an incentive to get there).

I think I understand the handling of credit cards now, although I think it is very confusing to regard it as another category yet it isn't actually budgeting the money twice.

Yeah, I get theory behind it - It's actually not so much that I am peeved that it won't let me allocate funds I haven't got yet (I absolutely get that ) but that I can't tell if I will have enough money for the 'immediate obligations' by the point they are due. That seems bonkers for a budgeting tool lol. (Although Trib's 'enter income as of 1st of month but don't clear' is a good work round. I'll just have to clear the account more regularly - I check it all the time to make sure I haven't missed anything, but only physically clear ynab every couple of weeks as it seems laborious - just a different way of working). It seems daft to have to enter predicted income as 1st instead of the date it is actually due, in order to be able to budget for the month - counter-intuitive, but I guess they don't really want you doing it at all.

There's no way I can run a week to week budget based on income. All of my expenses are monthly. If I had to try and enter only expenses due that week, my head would explode...

In the meantime, I'm going to sit at the desktop with the full array of devices and try and work out where the 4 glitch is. Starting with Dropbox.

Having to budget week-on-week wouldn't be quite so bad in YNAB 4, as you could show two months side-by-side and see what you had under your 'week 2' master category and what you had allocated in the month before.

The trouble is, by faking income you are at least partly disguising the problem that YNAB is trying to show you - you have less money than you think. Yes, in the real world you can expect money to be forthcoming in time but it's potentially a house of cards. A company I worked for made everyone redundant with no pay for the month just worked (after having assured them at the start of the month there was enough money to cover the salary bill) - that's the kind of catastrophic event YNAB is trying to protect you from.

The problem is it's still easy if you get paid right at the end of one month, as you do then miraculously have cash on hand for all of next month's expenses, with no actual effort or budgeting. However, change jobs and have, say, 6 weeks between pay cheques and the house of cards can come down again. I know people who are living that close to the margins.

You can, of course, go ahead and budget amounts you don't have and live with the 'sea of red' until the money starts showing up. But the only way to be certain the sea of red will disappear over the month is to put the income in in some way first (even if you then deleted it).

I think there's a scenario for a Feature Request here, although I would expect YNAB to accuse you of heresy.

Xpost trib. Hmm, I wondered yesterday about it picking up a different file somehow.

Interesting idea about setting up future income as a pseudo loan account, and using that to create a buffer. Hmmmm. Will ponder. Entering it on the 1st seems to be the closest to replicating my 4 habits (just means I need to remember to update the date of payment as well as tweaking the amount when it goes in) but I quite like the idea of using it as a tool in and of itself... I need to look up the goal setting functionality though - there is probably an easier way to do it... I'm reasonably new to ynab and so to date have been using it to prevent overspending and plan specific saving, rather than to create a buffer. That was always the goal intention for 2016