YNAB 25% off summer sale

hohum

tabby_cats_mum wrote: »

What I really want to get away from is balance checking,
I'm worried I'll go wrong somewhere and one of the accounts will end up overdrawn. Can you reassure me this won't happen:( ??

Yes and no...

You get the most from it if you spend time manually inputting items. So in some ways, especially at first, you will spend MORE time balance checking I'd guess.

You also would be smart to reconcile your bank accounts with YNAB every statement/ month (some people do it every week, I'm not that keen!)

On the other hand...

As I'm confident that the information in YNAB is correct, I don't worry anymore about not having the money for the bills. There's enough there if I do forget, or I can take some money out of one category and put it in another. Each time I get some money, I look at what I have coming up and budget to that category. So I have money sat in our accounts ready to go when the bill finally comes out (took us three months to get here mind you!).

Re spreadsheets, keep yours and use it for forecasting. A classic error people make is entering what they expect to spend for the next three months into YNAB and being confused by the negative balances. YNAB isn't designed for forecasting because that is playing with money you don't have. You use YNAB only for the money you actually have in your hand (and your pots!)

I'd recommend downloading the free trial and attending one of the free online classes, you can ask loads of questions like this as they go along. If you like it, post on here or on the YNAB support board and someone should be able to give you a referal code which gets you money off if you miss the sale.

tabby_cats_mum

I'd previously downloaded the free trial and didn't get around to using it so I've bitten the bullet and bought it. I'm currently sitting here furious as I've wasted my money! I just do not understand how it works.

I'll persevere but I think my trusty spreadsheet will be being used to recoup £22.99 from somewhere.

moohound

Took me about 2 hours to figure it out, it makes sense eventually.

tabby_cats_mum

I think it will take me about 2 years! I honestly wish I hadn't bothered, my computer skills are rubbish so that isn't helping.

egoode

tabby_cats_mum wrote: »

I'd previously downloaded the free trial and didn't get around to using it so I've bitten the bullet and bought it. I'm currently sitting here furious as I've wasted my money! I just do not understand how it works.

I'll persevere but I think my trusty spreadsheet will be being used to recoup £22.99 from somewhere.

Go on to their website they have lots of free classes that show you how to use the software and explain how the system works. If you can't attend any of the sessions they have links to previously run tutorials as well. I highly recommend you attend one of the sessions as I didn't really understand how their system worked until I went to a few of the different classes they run.

There's also an online forum where you can ask questions.

tabby_cats_mum

I think I've got it!!! Sort of.

I need a few tutorials however.

Thanks to all of you who've helped.

FireWyrm

tabby_cats_mum wrote: »

I think I've got it!!! Sort of.

I need a few tutorials however.

Thanks to all of you who've helped.

OK...what dont you get specifically? Perhaps we can help. I'm no substitute for the free videos and the forum you can access, but the philosophy is pretty easy. Just out of interest, would you be willing to post an anonymised version of your spreadsheet. I'm always curious to see how other people manage their money. You say you've been working on this spreadsheet for a few years, so I'm guessing that perhaps it has some aspects that may perhaps be useful to me and others. YNAB doesnt do everything. In fact, I actually analyse a lot in excel as well. The reports are good, but only after some time and it has plenty of data. As others have said, forecasting isnt it's strong suit if you stick purely to the ethos, but personally, I have gone ahead and added 'uncleared' transactions that represent planned income for the rest of the year and 'budgeted' from those until December knowing that things might change. I'm happy enough with that. I know I cannot commit to forward expenditure without foreward income, but I do it to a lesser extent anyway.

tabby_cats_mum

To be honest I'm yet again close to giving up on it, I just can't understand how to put my income in and make everything work, I'm either in the black or the red usually by thousands for some reason.

I think inputting on the 30th June has thrown me and it, do you know how to delete all of Junes data so I can start afresh?

As for managing 4 current accounts, no chance, I've ended up in a right mess.

I'd rather not post my spread sheet as it is very basic, very clunky and you'd probably laugh!!

Thanks for all the replies and your offer of help Firewyrm.

FireWyrm

OK. Start from scratch.

YNAB is a zero-based budgeting spreadsheet. It is just like Excel. Stop thinking that it is anything other than that. All it does is takes income, and records expenses. You can allocated expenses to categories and it will show those deductions in the 'Budget' tab.

The object of YNAB is to give every penny (dollar) a job. For every penny you get (or pound from now on), you need to give it a purpose and allocate it to a category.
Start off my creating an ONBUDGET account. Mine test account I'm going to use for this has a positive balance of £50. You need to chose 'checking' because this is american software and that's what they call a current account.

To allocate income, you have to tell YNAB what month you want it in. In this case, I'm going to tell it I have income in July and it will be £3000.



Okey Dokey.

I have income in July of £3000 PLUS the opening balance of £50. Lucky me. Now I switch to the Budget section and decide what to do with that money.



As you can see, started off with £3050 and I have allocated various amounts to some categories. Great. that is what I think I will be spending in the coming month, but I havnt actually spent it yet. You can see that I still notionally have £1700 spare (at the top in green), as I havnt allocated that yet. If I was to create a new category for BUFFER, just a place to hold money for the time being....



Now you can see that I have zero available to budget. That is good. That is exactly what I want to see. All my pounds now have a job, even if it means sitting in the BUFFER for now. I can re-allocate them later if I want to, but right now, they are not available to spend.

Fine. Lets remove a bit from the buffer and allocate it to some spending to see what happens next. I've added a new master category called FUN STUFF and allocated £100 to each category...but whoops...oh dear!


Not good, not good at all. I am over budget by £300.
But, as luck would have it, I have earned some more money...YAY.


Right...what does that do to my budget?



Okey dokey...now we're cooking. I'm back in the green. That means I can go spend some dosh now.


But what does that do to my budget? Well, lets look



Well, nothing as you can see. I still have £0.00 available to budget, but I do have an entry in the Song category for the £50 I just spent on drinks.

My friend calls me and asks me if I want to go out again. I take a look at the budget category for this purpose and I know I only have £50 in there to spend. But, I could take money from the Wine category and then, I would have more money available in the Song category....



Presto. I now have £100 to spend going out with my friend.

Now, say I'm pretty sure that I will get another £3000 next month. I can add this in the Account register for the appropriate account, like this :



I set it for Income in August (which defaults to 'available this month') because you are supposed to be budgeting with only money you have. Lets look at what happens to the budget :



Now, as you can see, I have £3000 notional available in August. I havnt allocated anything anywhere, so I have the full amount ready.

I havnt spent any of my BUFFER, so you can see that the running total along the line is still £1700, but you can also see that the running total for Song is only £100. This is because I spent £50 of it in July. If I was to spend no more, and that money came in as expected in August, I would have £100 to spend on Song next month.

Does that make it clearer?

hohum

Firewyrm your category names made me lol

I think in this case you can provide information but you can't get someone to implement it... think they would rather decide they have wasted money than try to understand it! Ah well.