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?

That's excellent!!

It’s good that you got to spend time with your brother OP, even if financially it wasn’t great it sounds like it was still worth it.

And congrats on the new purchases @BertieBotts! It’s great you can start to look ahead as well, even at things which once seemed impossible.

OP some things are more important than money. I hope you had a wonderful time with your brother.

I did. It was lovely. :)

@OrangeBlossomsinthesun your time with your brother reminds me of a friend who earns good money, but who doesn’t have a fancy car or lots of new clothes etc. She is so down to earth and lovely.

We were talking about finances once and she said her priority is spending her money on relationships with family and friends. So she would always rather book flights to see friends, or treat the family to a dinner out so they could all catch up etc, instead of spending it on material items (I assume she has the basics of life covered anyway). I love her priority and think is such an important way to invest any spare cash.

I want to give YNAB a go. Feel like I'm sinking in debt
Is there a referral code at all for a free trial?
Also can anyone recommend a "beginners guide" video on how to set YNAB up?

ynab.com/referral/?ref=M1yh3-POcR992Zaa&utm_source=customer_referral

I find the Nick True videos useful.

Also reading the ynab stuff on the site about the basic premise and the four rules.

There are some more links at the beginning of this thread too.

When I signed up you got 34 days free and if you use my referral code I've just posted after that you get a discount I think

34 day free trial. The referral only gets you a free month after the first paid month so you'll get one free on your third month (first trial, second paid, third referral) or 13 months for the price of twelve on your first year if you pay yearly.

I found it helpful to read up about it before I started my trial to really make sure the trial maximised it's usefulness.

How's everyone? I'm still clinging on after the disaster that was February. It all got so messy I did a Fresh Start actually.

Still here! Trucking along. Reddit YNAB is pretty good for good news stories.

Just thankful for YNAB when facing extras on bills, an adjustment to my tax code that will reduce next year's pay plus DP changing jobs and lowering his income by £10k a year. All due to hit in April. Without YNAB I'd have been oblivious to it, with YNAB we have a chance to adjust and see where we are at.

DP still refusing to be a part of it, but is at least now aware of how it works and what our joint funds are.

Hello! Still YNAB-ing on here too, and again I’m not making huge progress in savings or anything, but I am hugely aware of where the money is going and my priorities for where it should go (it’s all going on expensive petrol rather than anything nice at the moment grrrrrrr).

Like you @Kerberos I am doing it on my own as DH is not on board with the app etc, but he has always been better with money than I have so maybe he doesn’t need it as much.

Hope you’re all doing ok!

Clinging on here! Finances still a bit messy but at least I know what is going on now.

New YNAB concert here. I’m loving it. My income comes in dribs and drabs and for the first time I have a budget that makes sense to me.

Oh that's great to hear!

Welcome @Waterfordaston! Hope you are getting on well with YNAB. I’m still loving using it (well, tbh it is infuriating and calming in equal measure). It makes so much difference knowing where money is needed. I am not a big earner but I already have enough put by to pay the car insurance next month which to me is a big win.

I’m getting the hang of it slowly but there is stuff I don’t get.

I bank with HSBC and the balance on their never matches my YNAB balance ever. I think it’s because the bank includes all the pending whereas YNAB only includes fully cleared. Anyway it means that I’m not actually reconciling, despite checking each transaction.

The other thing is, what do you do with unassigned money? I have a little buffer which I keep in a separate category but that isn’t actually assigning every dollar/pound is it?

On the plus side I worked out that I could afford a nice new bench for the garden. I’d put off buying it thinking I couldn’t afford it but this month was the first time I thought “ok I can do this.”

Are you manually entering every transaction or importing data automatically from your bank? I enter everything manually My bank balance includes all pending transactions, so I enter them all into YNAB too - I know I have spent the money so I might as well put it in. So I can reconcile every day or so which is a nice feeling 😊

I know we are supposed to assign every dollar to a job, and the ‘buffer’ money is doing a job of helping you feel secure. So I would make a category called ‘Buffer’ and assign it there. Then you know where it is if you need it and it won’t get assigned to anything else. I’m sure other people might do things differently but you have to make the tool work for you.

Well done on your new bench - nice to know you have the money for it and will enjoy the result!

I was importing but I’ve started adding transactions manually. It’s so clever, I had the dinner money bill in today and panicked and then realised I already had that covered!

I enter manually too. I am in Spain and I don't think my bank can import into YNAB.

Can someone explain “age of money” to me? I get paid roughly twice a month and my age of money is 24 days but I don’t really understand it!

I think it looks at the last ten transactions and its the average of the age of the money spent in those. It is quite a controversial metric for a lot of ynab users as it doesn't work as well in places where you get paid monthly (unlike weekly in the US).

If you have the toolkit for chrome, there's an "age of buffering" figure, which lots of people find more useful. I'm old school and like the old live on last month's income rule instead.

Good to see everyone, last day of the month!

I have the toolkit, I'll have a look at the buffering option.
I should get a bit of a tax rebate in about May, hoping to be able to use it to maybe get a month ahead. Before I always used it to pay my credit card down as much as possible, and then just ended up using the credit card again.

I remember now why I took it off, too depressing hahahaha