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Anyone interested in a YNAB chat/support thread?

990 replies

OrangeBlossomsinthesun · 04/09/2021 10:43

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?

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OrangeBlossomsinthesun · 18/09/2021 15:16

Gah. The only pair of sandals I have broke. It's still hot here (not the uk) and I can't wear flip-flops for the next month so I managed to get a pair of sandals in the sales for €20 but that's had to come out of the money for the gas for the time being.

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BertieBotts · 19/09/2021 09:00

Food costs have gone up everywhere. We went shopping yesterday and spent €138 :( When I started YNAB I was allocating €70 per week for shopping. That was a bit too low, but twice is a bit much!

Everything is a bit precarious here because DS3 is 4 weeks old and there are covid delays getting the maternity/paternity pay through. Luckily I saved up in advance - it was really good to estimate how much we'd need - and so I think we will be fine but until the money is actually in your account you always worry don't you!

Also the hospital seem to think I don't have insurance and sent a bill for over €4k so that's a bit terrifying!

OrangeBlossomsinthesun · 19/09/2021 09:17

Congratulations!

I think I was forgetting how much I top up apart from the weekly shop. Food is cheaper here in Spain than further north. I shopped carefully yday and didn't need toiletries this week and it was 65 euros. But some weeks it's over 100. I think it will average to 500 a month probably rather than the 400 I thought we were spending on food.

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BertieBotts · 19/09/2021 09:49

Thank you :)

Yes I went to say this before but never finished the post - when I furst started I assumed €70 per week was just what we spent. I totally missed the top up shops, big spending weeks when I stocked up the pantry or freezer, etc! I think it was more like €90 - but then covid and lockdown hit and with all of us home it went up by a lot even before prices rose.

SeaShoreGalore · 19/09/2021 12:35

Have just found this thread after re joining YNAB last night. I used to use it a few years ago and was doing OK. Then an unexpected expense, and YNAB price rise and I stopped, and now I have a net worth of -£3900.

Over the last year I've kept telling myself that a couple of lean months and it'll be all paid off. Joing YNAB has made me see how unlikely that is, so it doesn't appeal to the optimist in. me, but sticking my head in the sand hasn't been working for me either.

Like everyone else it seems, doing my initial budget has proved a little daunting, as I face how little I actually have, vs the knowledge that not knowing didn't actually mean I had more money, and wasn't helpful. Really nice to hear from people saying it takes about a year to get sorted - makes me want to stick to it!

OrangeBlossomsinthesun · 19/09/2021 12:48

the knowledge that not knowing didn't actually mean I had more money, and wasn't helpful

Yy to this. However painful it is I feel like the scales have fallen and not doing this isn't an option.
My net worth is about - €2000
Before I would have paid for things and just sort of worked it out later, which meant I could never get rid of cc debt.
I need to pay for ynab today as my 34 days are nearly up.

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OrangeBlossomsinthesun · 19/09/2021 13:01

My money is 15 days old! I understand I'll be back to 0 when the month starts again? Or maybe not?

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BertieBotts · 19/09/2021 14:21

No. It's the average of your last 10 transactions, so in theory it should average out even through pay cycles, but I find it doesn't work perfectly when you're paid monthly (Americans are paid fortnightly) as it will cycle up to a max of about 30 just before payday and then crash down into single digits again about a week later. For the first few months I used a spreadsheet to track it throughout the month to see the average grow/make pretty graphs. The novelty of that wore off and I mostly ignore AOM now.

They say it is like this (remember $1 bills are a thing) imagine you got paid as a stack of dollar bills. You put them into something like a napkin dispenser and take money from the bottom of the pile each time you spend. When you get more money, it goes into the top. Your age of money is the amount of time each dollar spends in the dispenser before it is spent.

Or another analogy is that each pay packet is a physical envelope so it's the amount of time you can still be spending out of one single pay packet before having to open the next one.

So if you're like most European people and get paid monthly with most of your monthly bills set to go out on DD shortly after payday then your money you put in when you last got paid (or started YNAB) will start to run out just as loads of big transactions take place, and this will cause your age of money to drop because you only just got the "pile" of money you're currently spending from. But over time you'll see the low point get higher and higher.

BertieBotts · 19/09/2021 14:26

I feel like it's kind of redundant really because who gets paid, spends everything in one day and then spends nothing until the next payday? We need to eat every day... most people have expenses spread over the month.

OrangeBlossomsinthesun · 19/09/2021 14:28

Ah ok. I'm budgeting my pay and DH's. He's an employee so gets paid once a month. I'm a freelancer so mostly get paid at the end or beginning of the month but from various different sources.
DH works in a call center so doesn't earn huge amounts and my income is variable so that's one of the reasons I want to have more control.
I've learned so much already though.

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BertieBotts · 19/09/2021 14:59

Aah it might actually end up being quite accurate for you then in that case!

h0rsewithn0name · 19/09/2021 17:02

Thank you for this thread. I've had YNAB for the last 7 years, but I'm still on the old account where you purchased the licence for a one off fee. I've never seen the need to move over to the monthly system (let's be honest it's more money).

Can anyone persuade me to move over, or shall I stay as I am? I am totally committed to YNAB and it has revolutionalised our finances.

OrangeBlossomsinthesun · 19/09/2021 17:18

I don't know what the difference is? I imagine you don't have as many features or the app?

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Callmecordelia · 19/09/2021 17:22

I'm still on ynab 4, and probably will be until the app/Dropbox integration breaks. I bought it for a steal on Steam, probably the best value purchase I've ever made.

I have had a few trials of the new one, but I've never found it has enough new functionality for me to swap. The big thing for me is the method, and the software supports it. The method has been tweaked, but it is still the same really.

BertieBotts · 19/09/2021 17:32

I'd totally use the software version if you could still buy it so I don't see any big reason to swtich.

There is a good YNAB forum on reddit which has some 4 vs new links/discussions. They have updated some of the terminology which just affects new starters really but they are apparently looking to include better ways to track debts in the new version, it's just not released yet. Different goal types.

BertieBotts · 19/09/2021 17:40

You do get the monthly version for a lower price if you have a serial number for ynab4 I believe - $50 per year instead of $84, but I don't know if that is still true.

Callmecordelia · 19/09/2021 17:42

There are some things which I think work better in 4 - credit cards, reimbursements, three month view, walled months, an app which only shows the stuff you really need...

Goals are nice, and occasionally editing my budget on my phone would be great, but it's not a reason to switch. I have an annual subscription amount saved in a category though for when the inevitable happens.

I have to admit that most of the stuff I like is preference because I'm set in my ways and it's worked for me, and lots of people who started on nynab love it. You can make nynab work like 4 if you want to - setting up credit cards as current accounts, having income for next month categories, putting a minus sign in a category to simulate the red arrow to the right etc. It's just not as seamless.

Callmecordelia · 19/09/2021 17:42

There's a lifetime discount of 10% off the current purchase price.

BertieBotts · 19/09/2021 17:46

Ah it's 10% off rather than $34 off - that must have just been for the first adopters.

Callmecordelia · 19/09/2021 17:49

Yes, I got a trial in the first couple of days, but didn't go for it. If I had I'd be on a very low rate, but I've saved six years of subscriptions - pretty sure it came out in 2015 - so I think I'm up on the deal.

OrangeBlossomsinthesun · 19/09/2021 18:43

I have to say I do like being able to put transactions in on my phone and being able to check the budget on my phone, can you not do that on earlier versions?

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Callmecordelia · 19/09/2021 18:47

Yes you can add transactions and see how much you have left in each category, but you can't edit your budget categories or amounts. It syncs to the budget database which sits in your Dropbox account.

The app for ynab 4 is the weak link, because if Dropbox changes its api it won't work. There's a WiFi sync back up, but I've never used it.

OrangeBlossomsinthesun · 19/09/2021 18:50

I fucking hate Dropbox.

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Callmecordelia · 19/09/2021 19:00

I think it's fair to say ynab hated Dropbox too. Sync issues took up a lot of support time. No more Dropbox was a selling point of the new one.

I think I read somewhere that they didn't expect the app to take off like it did in either version. When nynab was launched, they expected it to be still primarily used on a desktop, but actually what people were doing was using the app more.

BertieBotts · 19/09/2021 21:36

Yes, I think this is a change that has taken a lot of IT people by surprise because we love our desktops and you will prize them from our cold dead hands but the general public... Love a smartphone. I think it's tipped now so that the majority of people don't have (or very rarely use) a computer at all. They just use their phone for everything. Having to go onto the computer is really inconvenient for a lot of people so so these companies that relied on a website for full functionality with the app or mobile site as a companion are falling behind.

I don't get it :o I love my computer!