Anyone interested in a YNAB chat/support thread?

[OrangeBlossomsinthesun]

Hi,

I wondered if anyone was interested in a YNAb thread to chat about progress and help each other. I've just started the trial period a couple of weeks ago and, although it's quite a steep learning curve I'm really impressed with it.
I'm freelance so it's important for me to track money and be prepared for fallow periods. I had a thread here with some great advice. I'll add it as there are some good links www.mumsnet.com/Talk/legal_money_matters/4327812-YNAB-help-for-a-freelancer?watched=1&msgid=110514876#110514876

Anyone up for some YNAB chat/support?

We have a joint account which I've covered with my budget using his transfer as "income" for now. So my budget covers my incidental spends, regular bills and any household spends like food.

His stuff from his account is a wild west of uncontrolled spending by comparison!

yep the wild west of spending is a good way to describe it!

I’m secretly loving getting on top of my own finances though, even though it was a hard wake up call at first. So he may see my smugness and decide to join me at some point.

Uh what a week. I blew my grocery budget on fish and chips for us and the kids last night

I just got paid an invoice and entered the transaction and choose inflow ready to assign but my ready to assign is still 0. What's going on?

I wonder if this is auto assign somehow, I got a message to update for new features the other day and clicked yes.

Ah I have fixed it.

Did you have overspending?

Our electricity bill has been insane for the last two years. €253 per month now. I despise feeling cold and I always said I'll do or cut anything to avoid the cold but our heating is so ridiculously expensive to run :(

Birth certificates finally arrived! So I can send those all off tomorrow and hopefully get some money.

Health insurance has written and presented me again with the hospital bill! I need to find out wtf I'm supposed to do with it. Hospital says I don't need to pay. So hopefully health insurance don't need me to pay.

I had things assigned next month when I was playing with it to work out totals I would need next month iyswim. So I put them all back to zero and the money appeared.
Omfg 253!!! We pay 90. Admittedly the only heating we have is a gas heater in the lounge (gas bottles cost 20 and last a couple of weeks) and a couple of convector heaters briefly in the bedrooms before bed, but still. Ouch.

We don't have any gas. But the main difference has been DH working from home and using the grill every day to make cheese on toast (!) and his computer 24/7.

We have awful 1960s storage heaters. We checked and it's much cheaper to run plug in convector heaters but it's less convenient as you have to turn them on and off manually and it's not really that safe with a toddler running around.

Ouch at the 253!

Just started to get back into YNABing again after a long break. Started a new budget when I got paid in August. Doing much better at trying to keep my grocery bills vaguely within budget this time.

Don't have any heating on and won't for another month probably. The advantage of where we live. Downside is 40 degrees in summer. But we don't have aircon either so it evens out.

Yeah, it's not too cold yet. I would like it on for a couple of hours when we get up. And we are starting to get condensation on the bedroom windows, need to keep an eye on that. But I took DS3 out of his sleeping bag last night as he was sweating so it can't have been that cold!

[quote Justanotherquestioner]@BertieBotts I do the exact same.
So currently last month I budgeted a couple hundred in the interest rate category. When interest was charged to my credit card I inputted it as a negative transaction and assigned it to the interest category. That way, when I budget to my credit card, I know it is taking away some of the capital debt rather than just treading water. If that makes sense[/quote]
I'm still confused about interest. Based on what you and @BertieBotts said I now have an interest and fees category in my budget. But I don't know what to do with it.

I plan to pay 50€ to the bank on 1st November. Based on previous months where I have done that, that will represent about 30e of capital of the debt and the rest will be interest. So I have 50€ in my credit card category as I will need to give that to the bank, and 25€ in my interest and fees category.
When the 50€ goes to the bank, what do I do with the 25€? When interest was charged to my credit card I inputted it as a negative transaction and assigned it to the interest category. I don't understand this. Or this That way, when I budget to my credit card, I know it is taking away some of the capital debt rather than just treading water. If that makes sense If it makes a difference, it's a card I am paying down but no longer using.
Would I be better to just increase my payment to the bank by 25€?

I think the idea is to treat interest like a bill. You won't know the exact amount until you are charged, so when you reconcile your account add the interest charge as a transaction to your interest and fees category. You'll need to fund the category with roughly the right amount, you can use last month's bill as a guide. As you start to pay down the debt it should hopefully reduce.

So in my credit card payment category do I put the amount of capital I have paid?

For instance let's say I tell the bank I want to pay 50€ this month. 50€ leaves my account but the capital I owe only reduces by 30€ and the rest of the 50€ I gave the bank is interest. So in YNAB I put 30€ in the credit card repayment category and 20€ in the interest category? And do the transactions once I know the exact figures?

Here's what I would do, no idea if it is exactly what ynab would recommend, but it's the only way that would make sense in my head. In your scenario I'd have to think of both the capital and interest as a bill, because you're not spending on that card.

I would have a category called "xxxx card repayment" and another called "xxxx card interest and fees". I would fund the interest first with whatever interest you were charged last month. I'd then make it a priority to fill the xxxx card repayment category as much as I can each month, putting in any spare capacity I could as the month goes along until the statement date. That tells you how much you can actually afford to reduce the capital by. You could set a goal if you want.

When you get your statement, put in the transaction for interest. The ynab credit card payment category should update, moving money from your fees and interest category to their category. Then use the move money tool to take whatever is in the xxx card payment category to your credit card payment category. That is now showing the amount that you need to transfer. Pay the card, log the transfer in ynab.

Wherever possible, ynab should reflect reality. If you're not using the card, I think just looking at it once a month, when you get your statement and concentrating on having a realistic capital reduction category should work, especially as you have such a variable income.

@Callmecordelia

Here's what I would do, no idea if it is exactly what ynab would recommend, but it's the only way that would make sense in my head. In your scenario I'd have to think of both the capital and interest as a bill, because you're not spending on that card.

I would have a category called "xxxx card repayment" and another called "xxxx card interest and fees". I would fund the interest first with whatever interest you were charged last month. I'd then make it a priority to fill the xxxx card repayment category as much as I can each month, putting in any spare capacity I could as the month goes along until the statement date. That tells you how much you can actually afford to reduce the capital by. You could set a goal if you want.

When you get your statement, put in the transaction for interest. The ynab credit card payment category should update, moving money from your fees and interest category to their category. Then use the move money tool to take whatever is in the xxx card payment category to your credit card payment category. That is now showing the amount that you need to transfer. Pay the card, log the transfer in ynab.

Wherever possible, ynab should reflect reality. If you're not using the card, I think just looking at it once a month, when you get your statement and concentrating on having a realistic capital reduction category should work, especially as you have such a variable income.

Thank you so much! Sometimes I just hit a wall of understanding. I would fund the interest first with whatever interest you were charged last month. OK, so last month I was charged 28.71€ so I have put 29€ in my interest category.

I've found the help documents down the side on YNAB actually and it says to do this:
In the Immediate Obligations category group, create a category for interest and fees (if you don't already have one).
2
For interest, go ahead and budget for it in advance by assigning money to the category. Don't know how much it will be? Aim for an amount at the high end of what you might expect.
An example Interest and Fees category has $40 assigned and $40 in the Available column.
3
When your credit card company charges you interest or a fee, record (or import) the charge in your credit card account register:
In the account register, a transaction for $26.42 is categorized to Interest and Fees.
4
Just like any other purchase (you just bought extra time to pay off your debt), as long as you've budgeted for it, the money will be moved to your Credit Card Payment category.

It's been helpful actually to work this out as I've discovered this too:
Before you pay your credit card, be sure to check your Credit Card Payment category to see how much you have Available to send for that payment

The Credit Card Payment category has a positive available amount of money budgeted to pay the credit card bill
You'll notice the Available amount in your Credit Card Payment category is shown again, right in your credit card account register (so you don't have to click back and forth before sending your payment 😉)

I was struggling to understand how to know how much I could pay off and how to record the interest. But I get it now. Going to take me sooo long to pay it off.......

I need to try and get my head round this too. It caused me no end of trouble last time and I've just ended up not putting the credit card into my current budget. I just assign it a category under debt and assign money to it for whatever last month's minimum payment was or a bit more if I can afford it.

I might have another go.

I've just ended up not putting the credit card into my current budget. I just assign it a category under debt and assign money to it for whatever last month's minimum payment was or a bit more if I can afford it. I have considered deleting it from YNAb and just doing that, but I'd like to do it "properly" if I can. Once it's eventually paid off I will probably put the physical card away in drawer somewhere.
The wya the tax system works here, as a freelancer I often get about a 1500-2000€ tax rebate in about June, so I will use some of that to get a bit further ahead, but it would be nice not to have to use it all on debt like I do every year.

OOh I've had a furtle around the reports section on the website YNAB and my net worth is up 67.72!!! How exciting!
I hadn't realise that's where I could find lists of what I spent and what I earned, that's really useful.
I'm sure this is all very basic to some of the older users. There is so much really to get your head around and so many features. But I love it. Still a bit depressing at times, but it feels better to have a plan.

Net worth is still negative but will be while the credit card is still in the red, but it's less negative than it was!

Checking my net worth is only worth doing at the end of the month because I get paid on the 27th. At this point in the month when all the bills have just gone out, it looks like it's going the wrong way.

Looking at the charts, it's depressing how much of my income goes on rent and council tax. It's not like you can do much about cutting money there.

Ooh I love net worth. I feel like I have less money but in essence my net worth is up about £60 compared to last month so I'm winning

@Justanotherquestioner

Ooh I love net worth. I feel like I have less money but in essence my net worth is up about £60 compared to last month so I'm winning

Yes definitely! But I think I was frittering loads without realising. It makes you more mindful when you have to justify every transaction by finding money to cover it. I also think I was assigning money in my head to multiple things without realizing iyswim. It's slow progress for me but I can see that I will be in a much better position if I stick with it.

I just treat the interest like a bill. We have interest that comes out on our overdrafts, or did when we were regularly in them. I put that as a recurring transaction for whenever it occurred which was three monthly. It didn't really matter that I didn't know the exact amount. I just budgeted roughly what I thought it would be or used the same amount as the quarter before. If I got it wrong I just had to pull some money from another category.

For DH's credit card the interest is also paid quarterly and there is a yearly fee I think. So I just add a transaction to payee X Bank, category interest and fees, with the amount of the interest or yearly fee. This is being paid out on the credit card. So just like any credit card purchase, when you budget for it and record the transaction, the money gets automatically moved to the credit card payment section.

Then ours doesn't have a previous balance but I'd budget my 50e or 35e or however much you want to put directly towards the debt in there separately. You budget directly to the credit card category when you want to pay off debt.

Then when you go to make your 50e payment to the card, that's done either as a transfer from Bank account to credit card, or you go onto the credit card account screen and click make payment. That will automatically create a transaction for you with the amount currently in your credit card payment category.