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?

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.
OK I am confused again now.
So, I can tell the bank how much I am going to give them. If I tell them I am going to give them 50€, about 30 of that will be interest. And the rest will service the debt.
So, I put 30 in interest and fees, but what do I put in the credit card repayment category? The 50 I have agreed to give the bank or the 20 that will service the 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.
Isn't this what I posted before from ynab?

I think I'm making the same mistake as last month in that I have budgeted for a credit card payment for October but I already made one on 1st October.

I need to have a good look at all this tomorrow on the computer instead of the app

I'd like to do it properly, but I'm not too bothered about the card because I don't use it and haven't for years. I'm essentially paying down an old debt. Where YNAB can help with it is in finding categories I can move money from or cut down to help pay it off a bit faster, while still leaving me money for true expenses.

OK I think I get it now. Sorry I feel really dim, it's like it just doesn't compute for ages.
So I move the money I have budgeted for interest as a transaction into cc repayment so it knows I have 29 to pay for the interest and then I add top that category up to 50 and that's what I pay to the bank?

This is why I liked the idea of a separate repayment category that you fill as you go towards the statement date. €50 is an arbitrary number. Is it what you can afford? It might be more or less than that, because you have a variable income.

You shouldn't need to move money for interest into the credit card payment category. Ynab should do that for you, because if there is money in a category, and you spend on a card (interest transactions are entered as spending) it moves money to the credit card payment category automatically.

Where you're tying yourself up in knots is you don't know how much to pay off. That's why I suggested the separate repayment category, at least for a bit, and using the move money tool just before paying it to tell you your payment. Yes, it's not exactly how ynab says to do it, but it's very close, and I think it will help you. It will immediately give you a figure you can trust and use.

You can budget directly to the credit card repayment category, but you (and other users) sometimes find that confusing. You could do it how Rafa is - I actually think that's cleaner, if you're not spending on the card. That's the important caveat - if you set the card up as a line of credit, or tracking liability, add the interest each month and do a transfer, it only works if there is no spending other than interest at all.

I think the important thing is to get a method that suits you and works, so you can get used to looking at your category balances, trusting them and keeping to them if possible.

Thanks all. I am feeling very in control of stuff now, but still fighting the urge to hide stuff from YNAB, like the £20 someone paid me back which was off budget fun money to my pre-YNAB brain

So far it's taught me a few things:

• giving every pound (or €) a job was a revelation
• I've claimed expenses I'd been putting off
• cancelled a contract I don't need anymore
• scaled back nights out, by driving, not drinking and taking everyone home at the end

I have money set aside for DS birthday next month, some for Christmas and even a small (very small) holiday fund for next year. I've got pots for home and car insurance. If an unexpected bill comes up I can roll with the punches.

Early days still but I am really liking this.

No don't move the interest money. YNAB will move it for you.

Are you spending on that card? Or any credit card? I'm wondering if you're familiar with how it works when you spend on a credit card in YNAB. I assumed you were, because it's the thing we did first before having to pay off any debt but that's probably just because German credit cards are weird.

Essentially, when you pay 30e interest on the card, that's just increasing the card balance by 30e. So it doesn't matter whether your 50e is 20 capital / 30 interest. As soon as that interest charge hits, it's all capital, according to YNAB and according to the card. If you didn't pay anything towards the card this month, its not like it would wall off 30e into a little separate compartment through next month and beyond. It would just be 30e more that you owe them overall.

Are you spending on that card? Or any credit card? No, it's a debt that I am trying to pay down but I haven't used it since August and won't be using it again.
I think it might be easier to just remove it from YNAB and do what @Callmecordelia suggests cos it's all confusing me loads.

Cordelia - I think you're suggesting a separate holding category for money earmarked to pay off the old debt, is that right? That sounds like a good idea, and much easier to keep track of if you are still spending on the card. It's what I'm doing with the overdrafts. I have a category for overdraft repayment and when it gets up to a nice round number I transfer that money in ynab only from the bank account to the overdraft in order to clear it. Of course for a credit card it doesn't need to be a round number. I'm just doing this because YNAB doesn't understand overdrafts.

Kerberos - I'd put the £20 in but wall it off into a category called fun money or Kerberos spending money or similar :) it's what I do for the kids pocket money or when we get sent gifts but we're skint and I don't want the gifts to get swallowed up in general bills, which they totally would if they just sat in my account or wallet.

You wouldn't need to remove it from ynab to do that. But if you definitely don't want to spend on it then having it as a tracking account would save all of the back and forth with categories. You'd still need to record the interest but it wouldn't need a category.

YNAB has helped me find £15 this month that I can pay off over the minimum payment though. And I think I’m at about the stage where I can probably set up a standing order for a set amount each month and not just the minimum payment. Probably not by much more than the current minimum payment, but every little helps.

Unless the price of food and electricity goes up by much more, then I may have to go back and look at it again.

I'm thinking of starting a new budget actually and not including the credit card as an account. I also have a few hidden categories.

The 50€ was a figure I arrived at as it was slightly over the minimum payment amount. But the last time I looked, it wasn't displaying the minimum amount.. It said 0, which obviously isn't correct.

YNAB isn't or your bank isn't?

My bank. My online banking should show me the minimum payment when I alter the amount i want to pay off, but sometimes the figure it shows is 0. I don't know why.

OK. I have decided to give up on the interest for now. I think I've got it and then I get confused again.

Seeing as it's old debt I want rid of, not a card I am using, I have decided to set up a new budget and just not add that credit card as an account.

I've created a category for repayment of the credit card and will just put whatever I can over the minimum each month in that category and use that figure to decide how much to pay the bank each month until it's gone.

It has taken me a while to set it all up again but it's been quite a good refresher course in how it all works, especially because I seem to be a bit prone to doing targets wrong (and double budgeting for things I've already paid...because both times I've set it up mid month).
So good to revise all that.

Back to zero AOM.

Yes that's strange. Must be some kind of glitch on their end.

I do remember a MoneySavingExpert tip - he always said never pay the minimum. If all you can afford is the minimum pament, then set up a direct debit for that same amount. The problem is the minimum payment is a percentage so will keep getting smaller, ensuring that you never pay off the debt. If you set up a DD then at least it doesn't keep getting smaller so it will eventually clear the debt.

I'll just do one last explanation in case this helps before you give up on the CC in YNAB.

In YNAB when you spend on a CC, the program automatically reserves that money for you. I'll share the example of our card this month.

We've made 3 purchases:
Groceries 51.90
Amazon 65.99
Groceries 32.00

That comes to 149.89.

Let's pretend there is a 2,000 balance of debt on the card. So after these three purchases, my card is at -2149.89.

Obviously when I spent money at the supermarket, it came out of the Groceries category. If I do that using a debit card or cash, the 51.90 is gone from the budget - spent. But with a credit card, 51.90 doesn't just get deducted from the groceries category, it moves, to the card payment category (which is right at the top when you first set up; I've moved mine to the bottom).

So my card payment category has 149.89 in it. But because I also have this debt balance to clear, let's say I want to pay 200 off the card. 149.89 is already accounted for, but I need an extra 50.11 to top the payment up to 200.

What you need to do in that case is assign the 50.11 directly to the card payment category, just like you'd assign money into the groceries or electricity category. This should top it up so that the available figure in card payment is 200.

If you have interest to account for instead of purchases, then it works the same (using round numbers to make it easy to see)

Balance of -2000

Check statement to see interest costs you 20
Go to card account page and add interest transaction of 20 (which you budget for like any bill)

Card balance changes to -2020

Assign an extra 30 into card payment category (that already has 20 in it from the interest transaction) topping it up to 50.

Make card payment of 50

Card balance is now -1970, lower than the original -2000 balance.

It is a great tip, Bertie. The problem was as my income fell and the cost of other stuff went up, I was having to really stretch myself to pay the minimum balance.

Thank you for the explanation! I think I get it now but I have already given up and started a new budget without the credit card. I always pay a bit more than the minimum and try to slowly increase the payments.
I think part of the problem was that somewhere I messed up the credit card transactions and I couldn't work out what I needed to budget, it seemed to want a different amount to what I expected. Something to do with what I did when I first started.
It's easier this way for me and I'll just budget an amount into a debt payment category and use that as to make a payment to the bank.

Me and @katplva had out budget meeting last night. Im enjoying the feeling of control using ynab. Age of money is 12 days now but I'm very low on cash.

I have no AOM atm as I restarted the budget. Going to get quite a large invoice at the end of this month so hoping to begin to cover some of my long term/true expenses.

I think it fab that you are doing it together! I'm glad I started this thread, I think I would have found it quite hard to work some of the stuff out.

Oooh you did restart!

I just got some money in today so managed to cover some red categories and true expenses

I don’t think that I would have stuck with it if I wasn’t being held slightly accountable! I’m delighted to have kept it going for a couple of months now.

Does anyone else on here follow YNAB on their various social media channels? I'm not bothered by the podcast (not a fan of Jesse Mecham) but I enjoy their YouTube videos particularly Budget Nerds! Anyone tempted by the merch next week?