YNAB support thread (2)

[HouseofHolbein]

Just a continuation of the previous one before it fills up!

Sorry, maybe I am mis understanding, by Linked do you mean that thing where it connects with your bank and you don't manually add each transaction?

yes, your linked accounts will automatically show transactions, you need to allocate them to your categories, but you don’t need to manually input the transactions.

If it’s an unlinked account (ie, doesn’t automatically import transactions), you need to manually add a transaction into that account…+£1 or whatever the interest is. Then assign that interest to a category.

You sounded confused by who to list as the payee of this transaction—you could call it ING, or ING Interest, or Interest.

I just add interest as interest and income. I don’t have any accounts linked because I prefer to manually add everything

I was confused about what category to put as I have a confusing (to me) work around to make sure I keep the money separate and don't think I have it as available to spend. I am not on the computer now but will have another look later.

Maybe open a category for whatever it is, and assign the monthly interest to it. For example, I have a category called retirement cash, and all interest from that savings account gets added to the category.

OK, I can´t link it, perhaps because I am Spain or maybe because it´s not a current account, I don´t know but it takes me through the process and then says it can´t find any ING accounts for that name.
I don´t really mind as I don´t have my other acounts linked anyway. I have created an ING interest category and that seems to have solved it, so thanks for the suggestion.

@OrangeBlossomsinthesun I don’t link my accounts either. I like putting stuff in manually.

I have some transactions as recurring but not many.

Hi all. I'm just getting into my second month. Felt very frustrated a week ago as I couldn't reconcile both of my accounts (personal and joint) and ended up just manually adjusting it which made me feel like a failure! I've also looked today and they're not matching. I don't have a computer and it's really hard to look between my phone banking app and ynab app. I find it hard to keep up with manual transactions on the go (we have been away for 4 days and when I'm wrangling 2 toddlers, double buggy, snacks, bags etc I forget to add manually). I can't face trying to fix it tonight after a shit show of a bedtime.
My money is only 6 days old but we are saving massively on nursery this month (recently switched to term time only) so I'm planning on using that budget to try to get a bit ahead. Problem is with the kids and a camping holiday coming up, other spending is going to go up.
I love how it makes me think about my money but I need to dedicate more time to it.

I've realised I need to get back to doing YNAB properly. Things are drifting. I reset the budgets for August with a fresh start. This is for personal and joint accounts. I'm experimenting with broad categories and sub-categories rather than trying to itemise everything to the nth degree.

They have introduced a feature where you decide how much you want to have in a category - eg Car insurance, MOT, by the dates they will come due and it works out how much you need to save every month to reach the target. Then if you don't allocate the monthly amount it tells you how adrift you are. I'm finding that very useful.

Currently annoying myself. I have a 10p discrepancy somewhere 😭😭 have 10p in current RTA but if I assign it I have a -10p in future months! I’ve checked my hidden categories and can’t find it.

considering unassigning everything in the future and trying again.

I had that recently but can´t remember how I solved it. I think eventually I got paid again and that mopped it up.

I’ve just taken everything out of future months and will reassign every month for a bit. At some point months in the future I am -£14.10 but maybe it will sort itself next time I reconcile? Might do that later anyway and see if it helps

Reconciled and for some reason it was all a bit of a mess. So I’ve gone for a fresh start where I know all my figures are correct. I’d got £500 more in YNAB than in real life and my credit card balance was way off for some reason.

hey go here we go again 😊

Assigning to future months really messed me up. So I only assign to the current month and run each category like a sinking fund.

Yeah that’s what I’m trying now. I’ve filled up all categories for now even if they are already paid for this month and will let everything roll over. Extra cash is in a pot named future months. I’ll see how this goes.

just had to adjust my credit card balance because when I put it in a couple of items hadn’t cleared. I didn’t spend anything yesterday so everything is correct.

I have just discovered money from last month that I had not ticked as having come out of my account some how, even though it had. No idea how I had managed to reconcile that, but basically it has meant I have 200 euros more than I thought I had!

Orange not a bad complaint.

I did a fresh start. I’m twelve months into getting paid monthly now. Maintenance comes in weekly and child benefit once a month.

Summer cost me my emergency fund so priorities now are to build that back up, car needs timing belt done, need a fill of kerosene and save for Christmas.

I’m showing up as one overspent category but exh will give me his half of back to school when I send him on spreadsheet, I’ll wait a couple of weeks because there’s always a few bits needed in first couple of weeks back.

Is this not the goal feature that’s always been there?

Sounds like lots of us have gone astray over last few months.
this thread will be busy in Sept!!

I’m quite looking forward to Monday tbh. Will see how my new approach is working! Planning on trying to not top up any categories until I get paid on the 7th although I do have some in a ready to assign category anyway. Want to see if my monthly income covers my outgoings in full tbh

It might be. I haven’t been keeping up with it all for a while. It seems a lot easier to use, more helpful than I remember. So it seems fresh to me. They might have updated it.

There have been a few updates recently so maybe it´s something that´s always been there but is now more obvious and user friendly to you.

I think this the case.

A new month tomorrow. I got all the entries up to date today. Can’t remember exactly how I decided to deal with some things at the last fresh start, but will try to avoid making yet another fresh start.

As always I am finding just the discipline of getting everything recorded and an overview is helping. My goal is to start 2026 with a clean slate and a plan. Seems doable.

Hi all, I hope the new month is going well for everyone. I've completely buggered up my plan and feel overwhelmed with sorting it out. I'm going to sit down tonight to try to sort it.
Basically I overspent a category I created for refunds. I bought a few outfits to try to wedding this weekend just gone, spent around £400 and allowed that category to be overspent. I've sent all back and the plan was to then top that category up with the refunds back to 0. But the month rolled over and that category now says £0. Also there's now £560 sitting in my ready to assign from last month when it was on 0 on Friday? And I can't seem to move it to ready to assign this month (but I'm not entirely sure what it is?) I don't know what's happened or how to fix it - I stupidly assumed the negative category would still be negative for me to 'fix'.
If I can't figure out how to fix it I might start from scratch but that's disappointing considering I'm only on month 4!
I also run a charity and frequently spend money I then get reimbursed. So far this has happened in the current month so no issues but I'm wondering now if there's a better way for me to mange this sort of thing?