You Need A Budget

Cranny44

marmitesocks wrote: »

That sounds great. Please could you share where the 20% discount was?

thanks

Sent you a PM

nellis10

Cranny44 wrote: »

Sent you a PM

I know STEAM have it for purchase for £29.99 did you get it cheaper than this? If so *cough* may I have a PM too?

nellis10

I am now the proud owner of a full version of YNAB!

Yippee!!! :j Thank you Cranny44

SeduLOUs

FireWyrm wrote: »

You can forward forecast by adding 'uncleared' transactions for known and expected income. I do this, as placeholders for the real money. When the actual money comes in and the entries are imported from the bank, I delete the placeholder and substitute the real transaction along with a note. I have forecast all income and spending until December when I will review the new year and decide budgets from there. Couple this with the likes of MoneyDashboard (an online agregator) and daily texts from the bank and you cant go far wrong in my opinion. I tried Microsoft Money, but couldnt get on with it. It is hard to accept and adapt to change.

Thanks FireWyrm. After your guiding post I went back to YNAB yesterday and got a good forecast together up to December with all of my expected income and expenses in. I've underestimated income and overestimated expenditure to err on the side of caution but I realise I am likely to need to adapt as I go.

I asked a few questions about setting up in the YNAB forums and got absolutely flamed for not using it the YNAB and playing with 'pretend' money. It still doesn't make sense to me why I am allowed to predict my expenditure but not to predict any income.

Anyway, seem to have it ironed out for the most part now so just waiting for June to hit so that I can get on with it. I'm already set for May in MS Money so figured I might as well just see the month out, plus May on YNAB can just be the horrific looking month that contains all of my debt starting balances

Thanks again for tempting me to take a closer look.

nellis10

SeduLOUs wrote: »

Thanks FireWyrm. After your guiding post I went back to YNAB yesterday and got a good forecast together up to December with all of my expected income and expenses in. I've underestimated income and overestimated expenditure to err on the side of caution but I realise I am likely to need to adapt as I go.

I asked a few questions about setting up in the YNAB forums and got absolutely flamed for not using it the YNAB and playing with 'pretend' money. It still doesn't make sense to me why I am allowed to predict my expenditure but not to predict any income.

Anyway, seem to have it ironed out for the most part now so just waiting for June to hit so that I can get on with it. I'm already set for May in MS Money so figured I might as well just see the month out, plus May on YNAB can just be the horrific looking month that contains all of my debt starting balances

Thanks again for tempting me to take a closer look.

At the end of the day, it's a tool to help YOU budget, not the YNAB forum people Use the way it works for you...Like FireWyrm and I do, it makes sense for you to predict your income/expenditure until year end and make monthly adjustments accordingly.

As long as the debt is going down and your happiness is going up...it's a winner no matter how you use it! :T

FireWyrm

SeduLOUs wrote: »

Thanks FireWyrm. After your guiding post I went back to YNAB yesterday and got a good forecast together up to December with all of my expected income and expenses in. I've underestimated income and overestimated expenditure to err on the side of caution but I realise I am likely to need to adapt as I go.

I asked a few questions about setting up in the YNAB forums and got absolutely flamed for not using it the YNAB and playing with 'pretend' money. It still doesn't make sense to me why I am allowed to predict my expenditure but not to predict any income.

Anyway, seem to have it ironed out for the most part now so just waiting for June to hit so that I can get on with it. I'm already set for May in MS Money so figured I might as well just see the month out, plus May on YNAB can just be the horrific looking month that contains all of my debt starting balances

Thanks again for tempting me to take a closer look.

Yes, they do tend to be a bit touchy about forward forecasting income, but I dont see why you cannot, as long as you are aware of what you are doing and sanity check to avoid double entries. I keep my income as 'uncleared' until it actually does clear, which I see as reasonable, but if you dont have money in the register for the forward months, I dont see how you can possibly plan ahead. I have planned up until December and I'll then start again in January onwards. 8 months ahead is quite sufficient I think. I understand their thinking, that you should only plan with money you have, but realistically, life isnt like that. I can however be reasonably sure that, barring some serious issue, I will continue to be paid on the last working day of the month and I know what that will be because of the way our PAYE system works, not something you tend to be able to do in America. I think they dont understand our tax and income system and so are afraid that you'll be spending money that you dont have because you have to pay tax annually in the US.

As it stands, I am well aware of the implications of double entry and I understand the principles of the programme, but it isnt a religion, we are allowed to deviate and not to be treated as heretics! Silly people.

Glad you are getting back into it though. I'm completely sold on it thus far and I dont see any reason to change it. I couple it with an online aggregation and keep an eye on my accounts at least weekly, so my biggest problem is that I actually have nothing to flipping do most of the time. I can stare at the budget, but basically, until I get paid, it all runs itself.

SeduLOUs

I think the main logical flaw in the system and the forum posts is to do with the enveloping strategy and saving in advance for later.

I get shot down for suggesting I want to plan ahead to ensure I can pay for my car MOT in October, and am told I cannot do this as I am guessing with pretend money what my income will be and I will fail!

Instead they suggest that I 'guess' what the MOT will be, divide it by the number of months remaining and put that money in a pot so it's ready at MOT time. Great,sounds awesome. But how can I possibly say that I will put £100 a month into a pot without making the same forbidden assumption that I'm going to actually get some income to allow me to put it in the pot?!

Another one I got put down for was for not setting up any rainy day fund pots. I explained as logically as I could that it isn't sensible for me to 'hold' an emergency fund when I have high interest debts on credit cards, and that I intend to pay off as much as possible to the cards and the available balances then become my 'emergency' pots. This concept also fell on deaf ears.

It appears the software will be perfect for my needs, but it appears I cannot say the same about the forums :rotfl:

nellis10

FireWyrm wrote: »

so my biggest problem is that I actually have nothing to flipping do most of the time. I can stare at the budget, but basically, until I get paid, it all runs itself.

lmao, I'm sorry I'm so like you! In the last couple of weeks I'm using it, I keep looking at my budget every day and then start playing with it, because I've no actual transactions to record! :rotfl:

SeduLOUs

nellis10 wrote: »

lmao, I'm sorry I'm so like you! In the last couple of weeks I'm using it, I keep looking at my budget every day and then start playing with it, because I've no actual transactions to record! :rotfl:

I suspect this will be me aswell.

The vast majority of my bills leave my account on 1st month, so all I really need to do is track my weekly grocery spend and odd bits.

I keep looking at it now and my budget doesn't even begin until June. I want to work on it, but simply have nothing else to do until my statements and pay arrive!

FireWyrm

I found March to be positively painful while I waited for the end of the month and the new pay to come in. I too decided to wait and start it on a clean month. I actually treated the pre-YNAB debt slightly differently as I have basically ringfenced the whole lot as a debt and made that a category. I didnt want it messing up my nicely constructed and calculated plans. Essentially, I've drawn a big thick line under any debt before April and my sole concern now is not incurring any more. I destroyed the cards, I rolled everything into a 0% card (yes, I know, consolidation, but I know what I am doing) and that's it. No more debt incurred. This whole process actually started more than a year ago, but I was working with spreadsheets then and it was ok, but not great. All that YNAB has done is to improve what I was doing with spreadsheets and codify the forward goals.

With regard to the whole forward planning for the MOT, they are half right, but again, remember that they are largely Americans on that board and the concept of an annual MOT is not something they have. I do actually do what they suggest, in that I put money into a 'car repairs' category which is separate from the 'insurance' and 'car tax' categories. But you are right, any which way you slice it, you have to make assumptions somewhere. Who knows, the car might be written off before you get to MOT time, what about that?

The other thing that seems to be perennial is how to set up the categories in the first place. Obviously, it is an intensely individual call, but to my mind, I think that a master category for the following is reasonable :

1) Buffer - get ahead (any unallocated pennies go in here, so the big figure at the top always shows a pretty green £0.00)
2) Future Plans - garden, boiler, appliances
3) Annual Expenses - bt line rental, AA breakdown
4) Monthly Bills - fixed outgoings like mortgage, gas, electric
5) Everyday expenses - play money
6) Rainy Day Funds (Bank A) - Entertainment
7) Rainy Day Funds (Bank - Petrol
8) Rainy Day Funds (Bank C) - Car Tax, Car insurance, Glasses, Dental, Children, School uniforms, Food, Winter Fuel
9) Savings - xmas and investments
10) Debt - any debts, cards, loans etc being paid off.

Remember, YNAB treats all on-budget accounts as common money, so whatever you have in other accounts can also be allocated via the budget window, hence the rainy day funds labelled as banks. The money is actually sitting there, not in a single account.

I also have the majority of bills go out on the 1st of the month, unless I cant (I'm looking at you co-op energy...why only the 5th and 21st, it makes no bloody sense!), so, most of the time, my attention is on a single set of funds, the Food allocation and the Petrol allocation. Anything else is paid and/or budgeted and waiting for the payment to go out. Who knew finance could be so frustrating. I keep tinkering but I have to force myself to stop it, or I tinker it into a mess. Essentially, I have to ration my checking of accounts and budgets to once a week, or I spend all my time staring at it.