You need a budget (YNAB) advice thread

hign10pines

How do I make the 2nd account as income for the month say from 22nd April?

I'm sure before all this my 'not budgeted for April' amount was £133.23 + £15.46 not it's just £133.23.

hign10pines

So I either that an 'overbudget in may' of £14.87 into June or an 'overspend in may' of £14.87. Accounts are all reconciled. Have no idea what is going on.

I still an so tempted to start a fresh version, maybe try the nYNAB version some more.

hiddenshadow

If you're looking at ynab4 then you can look at the numbers at the top of June. Line 1 will either say "£0.00 Not Budgeted in May" or "£14.87 Overbudgeted in May". Line 2 will either say "-£0.00 Overspent in May" or "-£14.87 Overspent in May".

Caveat is that if both numbers say 0.00 then you may be using the red arrow, so look at your May balance numbers to see if any are red.

Hope that helps.

loupoppins

Hi all,I have just started my free trial of this, and so far so good.
I just have a quick question. I have budgeted and scheduled transactions for regular monthly payments form June. I have added income as a scheduled transaction for when mine and hubbies salary goes in. But because that isn't there as yet my amount to be budgeted for June is a big fat minus number! Will this balance itself out automatically when the salary goes in on the scheduled date? The amount budgeted is round about the amount of salary, although I may have to tweak a bit....
TIA:j

lambda

Yes, that's right. It's negative at the moment because you have no money to budget. Once you income is cleared you will have money to budget.

loupoppins

thanks. makes sense.

hiddenshadow

It's personal preference whether you'd rather budget ahead and have lots of negative until you get paid (a goal number, if you like), or whether you'd rather get paid and then budget down to zero at that time. Either way you get to zero, just from opposite directions.

Just remember not to use category balances in June for spending purposes before you get paid. (If you're only putting in direct debits and such this shouldn't be an issue.)

lambda

I usually budget when I get the money, as the budget carries over anyway. So if I get paid at the end of this week, I will budget then, for May, and let it carry over. It makes more sense to me, as I then budget when I get paid, and not at the start of the month.

loupoppins

yes, I understand about not using the June budget figures as that is now double what is available for some categories (although as you say not for direct debits that have mostly already gone this month)
I think that maybe just budgeting when the money comes in is a better way to do it. I was just keen as I've just registered and there wasn't very much left to budget for May! Then again the exact amount of my salary always varies a bit, so until it goes in I can't fully budget anyway...but I also like the thought of forward planning though....will have to see how it goes. :huh:
I do actually get paid on Friday though - so that money will I suppose go initially into May, then get carried over to June - is that right?

hiddenshadow

loupoppins wrote: »

I think that maybe just budgeting when the money comes in is a better way to do it.

It fits the methodology better, certainly. (Only work with money you have in-hand.)

I was just keen as I've just registered and there wasn't very much left to budget for May!

We joined right after pay day as I recall, and it was pretty boring waiting to have more money to play around with.

Then again the exact amount of my salary always varies a bit, so until it goes in I can't fully budget anyway...but I also like the thought of forward planning though....will have to see how it goes. :huh:

You could always create a new budget and then put in "fake income" (dated today so it's available now) if you want to see how your budget looks if you get a bonus, or pay cut (hopefully the former!), while preserving your real budget as-is. (I don't remember if nYNAB has the ability to copy budget data, I think so?)

I do actually get paid on Friday though - so that money will I suppose go initially into May, then get carried over to June - is that right?

Yes, the money would be available on Friday but you can just budget it into June amounts.

One big gotcha there is if you do budget into future months and you adjust things in the current month, make sure to scroll forward to the last month you've budgeted into to make sure its TBB number is 0. There's a bug right now where you could have May budgeted to 0, carry over money into June and have that budgeted to 0, then have to budget extra in May to cover something and you won't find out about it until you move to June and discover your budget is overspent (May TBB will stay 0 rather than going negative, leading one to believe everything's OK).