YNAB Help please

[oxcat1]

I just yesterday downloaded YNAB and I am trying to get to grips with it.

Things are a little complicated, as I don't receive a single monthly pay cheque, but instead receive my money in various payments over the month, so it is not easy to budget from one month to the next.

Please can you tell me what I have done wrong in the attached screenshot?
My monthly rent is £950, so I added it to the 'budgeted' column.
I have received £365.50 towards that (although that payment has not yet cleared), so that payment appears in the activity column.
But why has it added the two figures together, in green, in 'available'?

I think I must have got this all wrong....

Initially I had it seemingly correct, with 'to be budgeted' on £0, and the balance in my current account all allocated.
However, surely it is meant to show you which expenses have not yet been covered? That is why I put some figures into the 'budgeted' column for things such as rent and water.
Is that wrong?

I've now changed the numbers to negatives, to reflect the fact that it is a payment, but that can't quite be right either as, according to this, I won't be able to even buy food fr the first 3.5 weeks of the month as all my money is already budgeted away.

Is there an easier way to do it if you have sporadic income? I don't have a single time in the month when I could 'begin' with a clear sheet?

Forgot the screenshot!

Look at their tutorials online, it helps! And they have great email support too.

Basically, you are mixing up what the columns are- let's say your rent is 100. You allocate 100 of your existing money to rent. Brilliant! 100 is now available for rent. On the appointed day, you pay your rent, and enter a transaction of -100. Your budget line will still show the 100 you allocated this month, but the amount available is now 0.
If you want YNAB to tell you when you don't have enough money allocated, you can set your rent category to have a target of 100 per month OR you can make your rent transaction recurring. Either way, rent will go orange when you don't have enough in there to pay it.
So say you only have 100 to your name, rent isn't due til next week, but you've got to eat- you allocate 50 to rent, 50 to groceries. Rent stays orange. When your next bit of money comes in, you allocate another 50 to rent which goes green- you have your 100, you are safe!
So basically, with money coming in in bits all month, you will never be able to blast all your budget lines in one go, but you can put bits towards things and turn them green bit by bit.

Very long winded, but hopefully helps?

Because I spent a lot of last night sitting breastfeeding, and mulling about this and that, I was thinking again about your questions, and how to answer clearly. One thing to remember- the budget column isn't an intention, it's actual money. So when you put your rent amount in there, you were assigning some of your actual money to the job of paying rent (and quite right to make the numbers positive). When you got paid, and you entered the transaction which you assigned to rent, you assigned more money to paying rent- which is why YNAB added the two amounts. It is usually clearer to assign income to "to be budgeted" and then allocate it as you see fit.
In your first screenshot you have actually allocated more money than you have, so you need allocate less- and then pop it in again once you get paid. It's like money on jars. When you budget money on YNAB it's like putting in in a jar. So a bit in the rent jar this week, a bit next week, and you will have enough when it is due, (hopefully).
Does any of this make sense???