You need a budget (YNAB) advice thread

Toomuchdebt · 17 April 2016 at 10:35AM

I get money in 10 times a month plus random bits and pieces I get from ebay. I just budget that particular amount as it comes in.

hign10pines · 27 April 2016 at 8:00PM

Should the amount is the 'pre-ynab' debt on budget accounts match that of balance on the actual budget?

hiddenshadow · 27 April 2016 at 8:55PM

hign10pines wrote: »

Should the amount is the 'pre-ynab' debt on budget accounts match that of balance on the actual budget?

Only if you're not using the credit card/overdraft, so that the only transactions on it are your payments to it and the interest charges.

e.g. your transactions
Starting Balance - Pre-YNAB Debt: CC - Outflow: £1,000
CC account in sidebar: -£1,000
Pre-YNAB debt red number for April: -£1,000

[regular payment]
Transfer: Current Account - [no category] - Inflow: £100
CC account in sidebar: -£900
Pre-YNAB debt red number for April now: -£900

[interest charge on May 1]
CC Company - Pre-YNAB Debt: CC - Outflow: £89
CC account in sidebar: -£989
Pre-YNAB debt red number for May: £-989

Your Pre-YNAB columns would look like this:

April
Budgeted: £100 | Activity: -£1,000 | Balance: £900

May
Budgeted: £0 | Activity: -£89 | Balance: -£989

If you're putting additional transactions on the account (buying groceries on your credit card, or with your overdraft), then those amounts won't get applied to the Pre-YNAB debt number in the April/May activity as they'd be categorised against Groceries.

In that case your Pre-YNAB Debt balance number should still match your account balance ignoring any extra spending.

Hope that helps.

hign10pines · 8 May 2016 at 1:59PM

hiddenshadow wrote: »

Only if you're not using the credit card/overdraft, so that the only transactions on it are your payments to it and the interest charges.

e.g. your transactions
Starting Balance - Pre-YNAB Debt: CC - Outflow: £1,000
CC account in sidebar: -£1,000
Pre-YNAB debt red number for April: -£1,000

[regular payment]
Transfer: Current Account - [no category] - Inflow: £100
CC account in sidebar: -£900
Pre-YNAB debt red number for April now: -£900

[interest charge on May 1]
CC Company - Pre-YNAB Debt: CC - Outflow: £89
CC account in sidebar: -£989
Pre-YNAB debt red number for May: £-989

Your Pre-YNAB columns would look like this:

April
Budgeted: £100 | Activity: -£1,000 | Balance: £900

May
Budgeted: £0 | Activity: -£89 | Balance: -£989

If you're putting additional transactions on the account (buying groceries on your credit card, or with your overdraft), then those amounts won't get applied to the Pre-YNAB debt number in the April/May activity as they'd be categorised against Groceries.

In that case your Pre-YNAB Debt balance number should still match your account balance ignoring any extra spending.

Hope that helps.

Clearly I'm doing something wrong as 2 of my 5 credit cards don't match. Balance in sidebar match credit card statements.

EDIT: Think I know why these don't balance. One has an annual fee added and one had a refund. So in theory I will have paid these off but have a balance on the monthly budget? I'm going to 'hid' the categories once paid off though. Sorted out the refund one, I had it as income for the month then as a transfer to cc so change to inflow for the pre-ynab card and now it balances

hiddenshadow · 8 May 2016 at 7:16PM

hign10pines wrote: »

Clearly I'm doing something wrong as 2 of my 5 credit cards don't match. Balance in sidebar match credit card statements.

EDIT: Think I know why these don't balance. One has an annual fee added and one had a refund. So in theory I will have paid these off but have a balance on the monthly budget? I'm going to 'hid' the categories once paid off though. Sorted out the refund one, I had it as income for the month then as a transfer to cc so change to inflow for the pre-ynab card and now it balances

The balance in the sidebar should match (except possibly transactions that are pending and won't show up on the credit card account yet). Glad you were able to sort out the others - yes, any extra transactions for the card need to go against the Pre-YNAB debt so that everything balances out.

I always hide the CCs once they're paid-in-full. As long as the sidebar amount matches what the CC company says, I know that they'll get paid automatically via direct debit so I'm not worried about what the balance for any given month is.

hign10pines · 9 May 2016 at 3:52PM

A new issue my main on budget account appears to be out by £9.20. The actual monthly budgets are fine though.

I'm thinking of starting again from say April 24th pay. If I did this what would I put the £133.23 that I had left in my account the day before payday as? Would this just be 'starting balance' income for May?

I don't really want to do this as I'd have to add all the accounts again

hiddenshadow · 9 May 2016 at 4:04PM

If you're out by a little amount you can assign that money to a random category (I always do our Direct Debits or Travel category, depending on my best guess as to where the money went). Or you can have YNAB fix it automatically for you - when you Reconcile the account if it's out, you should have the option to fix it.

In Classic, the workflow is:
- Begin Reconciliation
- Enter the actual amount in your bank budget
- Finish Reconciliation
- Create an adjustment transaction

I'm not sure what the workflow is for the new version as I haven't used it in several months, but it should be pretty similar.

hign10pines · 9 May 2016 at 4:14PM

End of March account balance is £7.23 but on YNAB it is £3.96 by the end of April YNAB is out my £9.20 and is £142.43 instead of £133.23

hign10pines · 9 May 2016 at 4:17PM

hiddenshadow wrote: »

If you're out by a little amount you can assign that money to a random category (I always do our Direct Debits or Travel category, depending on my best guess as to where the money went). Or you can have YNAB fix it automatically for you - when you Reconcile the account if it's out, you should have the option to fix it.

In Classic, the workflow is:
- Begin Reconciliation
- Enter the actual amount in your bank budget
- Finish Reconciliation
- Create an adjustment transaction

I'm not sure what the workflow is for the new version as I haven't used it in several months, but it should be pretty similar.

[STRIKE]I do that if my budget is out but it's my actual account balance that appear to be funky.[/STRIKE]

EDIT: Reconciliation looks scary

Right so did that and it doesn't appear to be taking into account any money in my other 'on budget' account like it was before. Should it?

Everything else is okay though.

hiddenshadow · 9 May 2016 at 4:41PM

hign10pines wrote: »

I do that if my budget is out but it's my actual account balance that appear to be funky.

EDIT: Reconciliation looks scary

Reconciliation isn't that bad. The transaction that YNAB generates is pretty obvious (Payee: Reconciliation Balance Adjustment, Memo: Entered automatically by YNAB) so you can find it later if it turns out you remember why your budget was out.

Edited: you can also delete that auto-generated transaction later if you change your mind, even though it has the "lock" icon from reconciliation.

Reconciliation is super handy as you can filter by un-reconciled things and have a much smaller list of transactions to analyse when tracking your spends.

You need a budget (YNAB) advice thread

Comments

Categories

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free