You need a budget (YNAB) advice thread

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  • Carolinemjs
    Carolinemjs Posts: 132 Forumite
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    A question previously asked and answered
    ""2 questions - is there any way at all to change the units from $ to £, and is there any way to change the date format to UK style, e.g. DD/MM/YYYY? """

    I don't have any option to change any settings, using the app on my iPad .....
  • hiddenshadow
    hiddenshadow Posts: 2,525 Forumite
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    curlyhairsuzy wrote: »
    Get paid on the 26th, so some bills have gone out already.
    I have added the balance of my account which stands at £700
    I then added ALL of my expenses pm to my budget.
    Is this wrong?
    It's confusing as between me and my wife we have income coming in 3x pm.
    Can someone clarify. Thanks.
    Also if it's relevant I've got the classic version not ynab4.

    If you're starting fresh, don't add in anything already paid for April. Just add them to May's budget if you want to remember the amounts. You've already paid them, with money that you no longer have. (YNAB cares about what's on hand and what's in the future.)

    I generally run our budgets this way - next month is a big giant red number for most of the month (we get paid 3 working days before end of month and on the last working day of the month). Once we get paid that number goes green (barely) and I can pad any categories at that time. In the meantime, I have the budget all set so I can tweak amounts as the month goes on.
  • hiddenshadow
    hiddenshadow Posts: 2,525 Forumite
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    Carolinemjs wrote: »
    A question previously asked and answered
    ""2 questions - is there any way at all to change the units from $ to £, and is there any way to change the date format to UK style, e.g. DD/MM/YYYY? """

    I don't have any option to change any settings, using the app on my iPad .....

    I don't think you can change that setting on the apps. They're definitely not as fully functional as the web version (though I think the plan is to reproduce functionality to the app eventually).
  • armchairexpert
    armchairexpert Posts: 822 Forumite
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    Has anyone gone from Classic YNAB to New YNAB and would recommend it?

    I'm still on old, and I like it a lot, but we run our account through our credit card and an offset mortgage, which YNAB isn't really set up for (there's an old YNAB blog post by an Australian who explained how to kind of trick YNAB into understanding this way of doing things, so it's not just me!), and I think new YNAB handles CCs a lot better. But I don't want to pay a subscription just for one improvement.

    Love to hear any opinions.
    MFW diary here. 1 Feb 2017 $229,371 - MFD Feb 2043 :eek: aiming for May 2028
    14 August 2017 - Refinanced: $220,000
    January 2019 $211,580 Current MFD 31 June 2036
  • hiddenshadow
    hiddenshadow Posts: 2,525 Forumite
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    I haven't swapped, but from what I've read on the forums, nYNAB is really not setup to handle offset anything (as it's so US-centric where any line of credit is Bad Evil Debt that's completely separate from any assets/current accounts/etc). I think it's more of an issue with overdraft, but the same concept applies to offset as well.

    (Essentially once you tell nYNAB that you have -£xxx,xxx as your offset mortgage that's also your current account, it says "oh hey you have no money and any future income is automatically going to get sucked in to making this big 'debt' go away, so pay it all off and then you can budget".)

    I'm sure there are workarounds, but just something to bear in mind.
  • January2015
    January2015 Posts: 2,369 Forumite
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    armchairexpert wrote: »
    Has anyone gone from Classic YNAB to New YNAB and would recommend it?

    I'm still on old, and I like it a lot, but we run our account through our credit card and an offset mortgage, which YNAB isn't really set up for (there's an old YNAB blog post by an Australian who explained how to kind of trick YNAB into understanding this way of doing things, so it's not just me!), and I think new YNAB handles CCs a lot better. But I don't want to pay a subscription just for one improvement.

    Love to hear any opinions.

    I recently signed up for the 34 day trial of the new online YNAB. I was anticipating running the online version alongside the classic version (which I love and have been using for the last two years). Within a week I was sold on the new online version and have stopped updating the classic version.

    I don't have credit cards, overdraft or offset mortgage so it's a fairly straightforward set up for me. I do record payments to my debts in it (as they come out of my bank account) but I don't have the outstanding debt balances recorded in YNAB. This is just how I chose to set it up. I reconcile my debts on a separate spreadsheet.
    DFW Nerd No. 1484 LBM 07/01/15 Debt was £95k :eek: Now debt free and happy :j
  • armchairexpert
    armchairexpert Posts: 822 Forumite
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    hiddenshadow wrote: »
    I haven't swapped, but from what I've read on the forums, nYNAB is really not setup to handle offset anything (as it's so US-centric where any line of credit is Bad Evil Debt that's completely separate from any assets/current accounts/etc). I think it's more of an issue with overdraft, but the same concept applies to offset as well.

    (Essentially once you tell nYNAB that you have -£xxx,xxx as your offset mortgage that's also your current account, it says "oh hey you have no money and any future income is automatically going to get sucked in to making this big 'debt' go away, so pay it all off and then you can budget".)

    I'm sure there are workarounds, but just something to bear in mind.

    Yeah, that's the same problem with the old one. The workaround, in case anyone else has this issue, is this:

    Create a mortgage account for the total available credit and then create a separate account for the amount you have available. So in my case, my mortgage is for $250,000, and I have about $23,000 available in credit because that's what I've paid into it. Instead of putting that in as a LOC of -$227,000 - which you're right, will create a Huge Sucking Hole Of Debt - what I've done is put in an offset account for -$250,000 and a separate 'checking' account for +$23,000. So my total net worth over those two accounts shows as -$227,000, which is what I actually owe, but it doesn't try and claw everything into debt.

    My issue is this: like many with off set accounts, I 'ride a credit card float'. My card is a 60-day interest free. It's set so that every month, it pays off the balance BUT it doesn't pay the balance in full. It pays off any transactions that are between 30 and 60 days old. So I never get charged interest, but effectively, my 'checking' account is paying back money I spent almost 2 months ago - the idea being that the longer the money sits on the card, the more interest I save in the mortgage. And as far as I can tell, even new YNAB doesn't really have a way to conquer that!

    Anyway, I've fidgeted with Classic and hopefully I've managed to create a set up that accurately reflects what's actually going on now. I love YNAB so much more than other budgeting software, I just wish it had a good solution for a financial product that's pretty common in Australia.
    MFW diary here. 1 Feb 2017 $229,371 - MFD Feb 2043 :eek: aiming for May 2028
    14 August 2017 - Refinanced: $220,000
    January 2019 $211,580 Current MFD 31 June 2036
  • debt_free_hope
    debt_free_hope Posts: 36 Forumite
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    I have down loaded YNAB but I am confused on how to begin. I Tried to join a webinar to understand how to use it but unfortunately did not have the right app. It`s as if you put your income in it can only go to one category .Am I missing something.
  • hiddenshadow
    hiddenshadow Posts: 2,525 Forumite
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    There are archived recordings of the workshops for the Classic version here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVzO-zN4Z_E&list=PLq0_N-XTl2yDgsEXADS8kgttnJ3VeexbZ

    When you add income (either as a starting balance to an account or as income received from pay/benefits/etc), its category is "Income for This Month" or "Income for Next Month". Then that money becomes available in the big number at the top (Available to Budget) and you can use it to give balances to categories however you like. Then you enter spending transactions against those categories throughout the month.

    Hope that makes a bit of sense - I do recommend watching the recordings, though, they're very helpful. It doesn't look like they have a support e-mail on their site anymore, but there is a help form in the bottom right (shown as ?) of their page: https://www.youneedabudget.com/ (if you do get stuck).
  • Anoneemoose
    Anoneemoose Posts: 2,258 Forumite
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    debt_free_hope wrote: »
    I have down loaded YNAB but I am confused on how to begin. I Tried to join a webinar to understand how to use it but unfortunately did not have the right app. It`s as if you put your income in it can only go to one category .Am I missing something.

    I found youtube really good for videos on how to use the new one. Are you trying to set it up via the app? Just I think you need a laptop or pc (but I could be wrong), to set it all up properly. I use the app to add transactions and quickly view stuff, but there're a lot of things you can't do through the app.
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