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 so funny @OrangeBlossomsinthesun, although I’m sorry to hear it’s tough to look at! I have never used the toolkit as I just do everything on my phone. I might be missing out though - do you find it useful for much?

I do a mixture of phone and computer. I find it easier to see on the larger computer screen and easier to check and reconcile bank accounts with two windows open on the computer than the phone. Also, I'm on the computer all day for work so it's easy to do 5 minutes ynab on the computer.

How's everyone doing?

Does anyone know if YNAB can connect with Starling Bank?
I've tried to connect it with both Starling and First Direct, but only FD showing 🤷‍♀️

Still here!

For the "buffering" I'm working up to a £1000 emergency fund which I guess is really "stuff I forgot to budget for".

General "I want that, I need that, I work hard and deserve that" spending remains way down on preYNAB days. Other expenses are creeping up as inflation bites but I'm still feeling in control.

Small wins are still having the money to pay for something because its budgeted in.

I'm using manual inputs as it makes me think about what I'm spending and when. Autoimport would risk it turning into a reporting tool I think.

Sounds like you´re doing well! I am still just struggling to cover what I need to on a basic level. I have a tax rebate coming soon but I don´t think it will go very far at all. I had hoped I might get half a month ahead or something but that looks less likely. We really need to paint the outside of the house this year and I´m wondering how we´re going to manage that without taking a loan out. Bits of plaster are falling off and we haven´t painted it since we moved in 7 years ago.
Also have had a late paying customer recently whihc fucked everything up a bit. Currently having to empty all my long term expense categories.
I´m sticking with YNAB because there is no other way basically, but, fuck me, it´s still really depressing a lot of the time. The further I get into it the worse of a mess I realise I was in without knowing it. It´s a loooooong way back up to get into the black.

@OrangeBlossomsinthesun just think, at least you have long term expense categories to empty. Without YNAB you probably wouldn't have that.

Sympathy though, it sounds really tough.

@OrangeBlossomsinthesun that sounds so hard. I know it is really hard and depressing.

The day has finally come. The YNAB4 Dropbox integration has broken. I need to make some choices - sideload the altered app that was done by a fan, and looks OK, or spend the nYNAB category that I've had for a few months. At the moment I'm doing wifi sync, and it isn't great. I might get used to it though, and I'd really rather not spend the money at the moment.

Oh that's disappointing @Callmecordelia at least you have saved some money up if you do go for the newer version.
Yes @Nahnanananahna without ynab I'd be in a worse mess, it's just really fucking slow going to get on to an even keel. One thing that I have learned is how to deal with debt. I always used to stack up loads of credit card debt and then pay most of it off with my tax rebate but then get mashed by a long term expense and start having to rack up more cc debt. Although I haven't got very far with ynab in some ways, I have managed to reduce the credit card to only one rather than 2.
I'm writing a course related to my job to launch with a colleague in September. Every sale will net me 180 euros so hopefully it sells well. Even one sale a month in the first year would be great.

Try and keep reminding yourself how far you've come. Is is hard work but getting the credit cards down to 1 is a massive achievement!

Hello YNABers!

I’m still plodding along here and things are generally looking ok. I’ve been using YNAB for less than a year though, so there are still expenses popping up that I had forgotten about - our house insurance is due this month and I had no category for that. I’m hoping that after a full year of using it I will be more cognisant of the general household and life expenses and have everything categorised.

I’d also like to get my husband on board - if you use it with a partner do they have their own separate YNAB account, or do not get have a separate budget within the same account, or do you use the same budget together? Not sure which one will work best for us. We have a joint account but otherwise we spend separately.

Thanks

I have a DP who's not on board at all still.

So I track all the family spends through our joint account and any personal accounts of mine. This accounts for about 80% of what we spend. I share with him on a regular basis where we're at. I've offered him my login and to create his own budget but he's not on board yet. It's massively frustrating but it's his money.

I've also been adding more annual expenses as we go, and it's giving me more reason to shop around and try to beat what we have in the budget. Big win was having £300 set aside for car insurance and finding a deal for £200. I'm sure there are more annual expenses to come though.

My DH isn´t involved in YNAB at all either. Ive told him all about it and he knows I´m doing it but doesn´t use it at all himself. He´s not an English speaker either and we don´t live in an English speaking country so there´s an added level of complication there. Most things come out of my account and some direct debits from his, but I have full access to his accounts on line so I just check his account when I check mine and add it all to YNAB.
He tells me what he´s spent mostly and I add it to YNAB.
Got some car expenses coming up and have some money put aside but will also have low income next month as last month was slow, so we´ll have to see how we go, but at least I know these things are coming these days.
Hopefully will get a tax rebate in the next month or so.

Still struggling along. Things are under better control with YNAB but sometimes I just think we don´t earn enough. Just endlessly fire fighting. I think I still haven´t fully absorbed the message of long term expenses because I´m still not on top of them almost a year later.

Feeling a bit depressed. Feel like there´s no choice in that without ynab things would be worse but I´m still in a financial mess. The money just isnt going far enough. Admittedly I´ve had a couple of slow months, but I can never seem to get far enough ahead to weather a slow month.

I guess I just have to keep plodding, right?

@OrangeBlossomsinthesun you might find income isn't high enough to cover your expenses. That's clarity YNAB can give. DH lost his job over Covid and now earns 1/3 of what he did. YNAB helped us through this but ultimately we had to make some major life changes (downgraded housing and actually moved cities) to get through.

I don't want to sound negative but I often see toxic positivity around how budgeting can fix everything, and sometimes watching the pennies isn't enough.

We should be able to manage just about on my average earnings. I´ve added up the cost of everything in my budget and it´s doable on DH´s earnings and my averaged out earnings. That includes paying down the kids´braces and paying off my credit card slowly. But there´s no room to save at all.

I have a 1500€ tax rebate to come in, hopefully within the next couple of weeks. I had hoped to be able to use some of it to paint the outside of the house but I´m going to put it towards long term expenses and try to get things on a more even keel for the next few months. At the end of August I finish paying off the Christmas presents, that is 50 a month. Next year I can reduce the house insurance slightly (currently tied in to a policy).

You might surprise yourself what you can do once you catch up.

Hopefully. I just feel at the moment it´s always 1 step forward, 11 steps back. I´m hoping with the 1500 I can fire fight a bit and then move forward.

I´ve got a weird glitch the last few days when using YNAB on the computer. The date spins round wildly and you can choose a date to input. Anyone else?

Just got it, think I understand the basic principle and it should work for me as I used to physically cash/envelope years ago (I had different purses for different categories)

But it's all a bit headache inducing at the moment despite watching the starter videos.

I really need to rein in my spending in certain areas, I used to be good at managing a much tighter budget but I'm out of practice and want to get back being good again

So really just placemarking now will read properly tomorrow

Hi @Graphista I’ve just started too! Not really watched many videos I’ve dived straight in 😱think I’m getting the hang of it tho…

Welcome @Graphista and @HouseofHolbein ! The videos are useful if you´re finding it confusing.

How are you getting on with it @OrangeBlossomsinthesun? I have read your progress on this thread which has helped me with starting 😊

Getting on OK with YNAB itself now, just not really earning enough a lot of the time I think, but not really able to cut back much either.
One thing it has helped me with is just the whole debt mindset I think. Before, I would always try to reduce my credit card debt as fast as possible but without covering long term expenses, so then I ended up having to put things on the cc again. YNAB has helped me really work out what´s coming up and be able to be ready for it and be OK with paying the minimum off the cc and just accepting it will take longer but will eventually disappear that way. It´s just really slow going because I have so little leeway financially.