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?

I keep adding categories to my budget as I remember stuff.

I'm using it because I get paid 4 weekly and it's a bit challenging budgeting monthly if that makes sense? I just about pick up enough every pay day to cover my monthly expenses but I have no leeway in it. Then I go a bit mad when I get my extra payday one month a year.

I'm hoping this year to use my 13th month to get me a bit ahead so that I don't need to worry so much if I have a short month. I'm hourly paid and wages vary.

I am still adding categories in every so often after nearly a year of using YNAB! That’s just life I think.

I am finding it very hard to get a month ahead, even though I am earning a bit more now than I was 6 months ago. General living costs have gone up and surprise bills still arrive every so often. At some point I’d love to be a month ahead - that is my goal for the next year or two.

The videos are way too fast! I can't follow them!

My current account and Ynab balances don't match at all and I can't figure out why. I've identified 3 missing transactions but they don't account for the discrepancy.

I think my inflow is messed up too as I think it's counted 1 x £200 twice as £400 when it's only £200 that went into my savings account and I then transferred to my current account to pay for something

Help! Not getting it at all and don't know how to fix it so it's all as it should be.

Can you guys help me just at least get it so the figures are correct?

Ok I've managed to reconcile so the balances match! Phew

Now I need to sort my inflow

I THINK the inflow is reconciled now.

How do I sort how money is assigned?

I wanted to use this to be able to do a long term view to work out if I can afford to do/get certain things it doesn't seem to really do that? Only works a few weeks/month ahead?

For long term things, read up on or watch videos about targets. There are a few different types

It's no good for forecasting, you need a spreadsheet for that. You can play around with targets and it will tell you how much you'd need to save by a certain time or how long it will take to save if you put in a certain amount but no more than that really, and you could do that with a calculator or pen and paper.

I think this is because it doesn't really want you going oh yeah in six months I'll have X amount so I can afford that now... The philosophy doesn't really let you do that as you might have a total financial emergency tomorrow that completely changes the situation.

Don't bother with the auto assign, it's too confusing and it will use its own logic. Instead go through and manually assign your money to categories in the order you want to. This is easiest to do on web, although you can do it in the app.

You can also sign up for a workshop on the website, they are free and they'll talk you through things step by step so not as fast as a video.

BTW the glitch the other day was caused by the toolkit not updating but it's fixed now. If you're having any leftover issues try disabling toolkit.

Sorry for loads of post spam! When you had the doubled inflow, it sounds like you added an inflow transaction on your current account and then again on your savings account. What you should have done was created a transaction in current account of 200 outflow, with the payee set as transfer to/from savings account (this is an automatic option YNAB includes for you). This would create an automatic matching inflow transaction on savings account but not add extra inflow on main budget screen.

Been using it for a few months and although generally good I still get confused between the red and amber highlighted figures.
Also when using a credit card which frustratingly doesn't allow my John Lewis card to be linked.

Have watched several tutorials but still confused (tbf doesn't take much!)

Red means overspending whereas amber means there's something to be aware of. Could be that you don't have enough available to meet a goal, could be overspending on credit.

I don't think I can get my head around it

@OrangeBlossomsinthesun targets aren't what I mean, I mean I want something I can glance at to work out if I can afford to do x y z - things which I don't know I want to do until the situation arises

@BertieBotts I think you're right

Don't like the auto assign as it's assigning money to things I don't consider a priority and not to things I do consider a priority. It's also auto assigning money to things that aren't due to need a payment until after I next get income which doesn't make sense to me. Also I can't figure out how to manually change what's assigned where.

The £200 the other day went into my savings then out to my current account and was then used to pay for something out of the current account was murder getting it all working correctly and balancing. Takes me mins on a spreadsheet though.

Today I've an interest charge on one credit card but I can't figure out how to add a category within the credit card area nor understand what kind of category this should be?

I've watched a number of videos which just go over my head, read a number of articles which aren't much more explanatory to me.

This is an app which to my mind should work far more easily for those of us a bit less financially literate than an auditor!

I think I may give up and just go back to spreadsheets. I had spreadsheets on laptop (for a bigger view and able to easily see further ahead time wise) and on phone for a sort of "at a glance" thing and would reconcile them weekly with the aid of paper and pencil.

Ultimately I know it's up to me to get the spending under control which I am trying my hardest to do. But I was hoping this app would make it easier to get an overview of my finances but it's just confusing me!

Do you have a computer? I find the web version so much easier to use than the app, I only really use the app for checking categories at a glance on the go or inputting transactions before I forget them.

I think auto assign looks at targets and assigns money to anything with a target first by the date that you've set the target to, after that it goes top to bottom. But I never use it, much prefer the process of manually choosing how much to put into categories. For example I never fill the food shopping one up in one go. Also I don't use targets for monthly bills as that's pointless, I just use scheduled recurring transactions. It does the same thing and if the amount changes you only have to change that rather than the target.

You can't add a category to the credit card section but you can add a transaction in the credit card account. I have a category for interest and bank charges under a master category I call repayments. I put things like debt payments there but also fines, Interest and bank charges.

There's a bit of a learning curve understanding what the software is actually doing which I find is clearer on web than mobile, but even there it's not always obvious. Some more recent features have made this a bit more obscure as welL

Ultimately though if the spreadsheet works for you maybe that is better? What is it you were hoping to do differently with YNAB?

@BertieBotts the whole point for me was an app on phone I could quickly reference esp when out and about as don't have the laptop with me then!

You can't add a category to the credit card section but you can add a transaction in the credit card account.

But it's "shouting at me" to categorise it?

Spreadsheet is easier to view on the laptop so was hoping to kinda sync everything up so when out and about I could see at a glance what I had available which would then help me decide whether and how much I could spend

I am now creating a new workbook on phone spreadsheet app which I will set up with a budget monthly overview/soa, my usual weekly running projections and a sheet with columns per my spending categories and I'll just have to enter transactions/spending manually, I'll set it up to calculate starting amount assigned less expenditure and a total at the bottom of each column I can look at to see what I have available to spend

I think that's my best bet at this point - just hope Ynab easy to cancel!

Can´t you just have a savings/emergency category? So you cover all expenses (regular and long term) and anything left over is available? I´m not sure what it is you´re wanting to do really. If you´re trying to forecast, that´s not really what YNAB does as far as I understand, because things can change so unless you have the money now (saved up for example once all expenses, even long term, have been covered) then you don´t really have it iyswim?

You can't add a category to the credit card section but you can add a transaction in the credit card account.
But it's "shouting at me" to categorise it?¨Categorising the transaction means basically telling YNAB where that money is coming from as I understand it, so it wants to know which account it has come from perhaps or which spending category you´re using to cover that spend?
Spendign categories are different, they´re like envelopes of moeny that you budget from

You need to put it in a category, but you can't create that category in the credit card master category, because that's a special category you can't edit and is only used for holding money to pay off credit cards for the purchases you've made in the current month. I put my interest charges in a subcategory called "interest and fees" in my master category "repayments". Categorise always means this, it's not to do with where the money is going or coming from, that's "payee".

It is really easy to cancel apparently, their customer service team are pretty helpful, they will also offer to walk you through anything to help you get it working, which might be more helpful than us doing it as they can access your budget if you allow them to by turning on a switch in settings.

I do use the app for quick glance but I use the web version on my desktop to set things up or tinker with it as I find this clunky on the phone. According to reddit though, lots of people do use it exclusively on mobile.

What you're describing, wanting to see the whole month including money you expect to receive but haven't yet is more like Mint, YNAB is based on envelope budgeting so only based on money you definitely already have. One of the principles is to get a month ahead, once you've done this, then you're essentially playing with the whole month's money at once, but you have a bit of a buffer behind you, so it's more realistic than Mint. I like it and have found it really helpful in actually seeing whether I can afford stuff or not, over time our money situation has improved or at the worst stayed static, rather than being static or going down, which is what we had in the past, so it is worth it for me but it won't be for everyone.

Very helpful post, @BertieBotts you explain it all very well.

Just had a 750 euro bill for soemthing to do with the suspension, to get the car through its mot <sob>. I only had 300 budgeted for it. But I suppose, before YNBA I wouldn´t have even had that.

Oh that’s painful OP! But yes, you had nearly half of it ready to go at least - well done. It would feel amazing to have the whole lot sitting there waiting, but I think that is still a long way away for me too.

It was quite a useful shock in a way because it made me sit down and add up all the expenses for both cars this year. Then I was talking to the mechanic about whether to start thinling about changing cars for newer model. He was saying that the one that´s about to do its mot is a good car, it was just this thing for the suspension that´s expensive but it won´t need doing again ever probably. He thought it was worth spening up to 200 a month running a car (servicing, insurance, tax) before it would be uneconomic. Ours cost us about half that at the moment.
Also, to buy a second hand newer car, we´d be spending over 200 a month because we would have to pay financing, insurance, maintenance and tax.

We have just done our first UK trip since starting YNAB! Several hundred over budget - oops - but useful to see it all laid out.