You need a budget (YNAB) advice thread

Frogletina

andyfromotley wrote: »

This is precisely how i acquired £20k plus of debt. It makes me feel ill just writing it.

Writing it down is the first step to dealing with it. I had no access to credit when I got married, and for that I am grateful.

I've always given myself an allowance and would not allow myself to go over it.

Once it was 30p a week! And I still have the notebook which says what I spent it on!

But I remember also saving £2 a month at one time to buy a tumble drier as I really wanted to have one. I was still able to dry my clothes on the line while waiting for the day that I had enough money. That day eventually came, and I no longer had to have wet clothes around the house taking two days to dry on wet days in a house that had no central heating.

frogletina

redmel1621

Can I ask another question please...

Today is day 1. My current balance is -£489 and I will have £220 bein put in the bank tomorrow taking my balance to -£269. Will YNAB show that I have any monies available to budget?

Unfortunately I will need to spend that £220.00 and the same again on Tuesday, £240 will go in but is all needed, and on Wednesday £200 will go in and will probably ALL be required for immediate spending.

Next week things should start to get a bit better.

andyfromotley

ok, my understanding is (i'm still fairly new to it)

Create a category called overdraft. Input either your full o/d limit if you use that or your current negative balance. Enter it as a NEGATIVE number. This will free up the money as available to budget.(ATB)

Then if you want to reduce your od ny say 20 pm simply budget £20PM to that category. When it reaches £0 at the end of a month congrats you are no longer overrawn at the end of the month!

redmel1621

I am going through the overdraft tutorial but it is a bit tricky to relate it to me as in the example they get paid far more than the overdraft.

I have done as it suggested and started the account up with a negative figure and it automatically created a category called pre ynab debt (or something like that)

Hopefully when I enter an income amount tomorrow it just shows it as available.

But do I then have to let ynab know that the bank has taken the whole lot so I will then be overraawn but less so.. then when I carry on allocating money to the rent it will just put me back to 500 ish overdrawn? It is so confusing...

Frogletina

Hi Redmel

Although you will still be overdrawn, I have a feeling that Ynab will not see your income as reducing your overdraft as it sees it as pre ynab debt.

As I understand it, you can allocate your full income to payments due and not worry about the pre ynab debt at this stage. What you want to do is not increase the debt, and keep within your budget.

eg bank overdraft of 500
bank account now -500
income tomorrow +200
bank will show -300

Your budget will show pre ynab debt -500
income +200

If you can manage on the income without increasing your overdraft to more than £500 (and it seems you can if your overdraft has remained at the same level for a while), then I would suggest you concentrate on managing on your income, and ignore the fact that your overdraft rises and falls. Only worry if it increases over the amount it is today.

Then in time, if you find you have some spare money, however little, then allocate it to your pre ynab debt.

I'm sure someone more experienced than I may be able to give you more advice. I'm still on the trial version.

frogletina

redmel1621

Aaaaahhh Thank you, that makes sense now.

I have a £500 authorised overdraft, so is what I will do is set my pre-ynab debt to £500. Then whilst I am catching up with myself, after swiping my account clear in order to buy a car, I will just use the income to pay bills. Once I am caught up, which will be over the next few weeks, I will then start having excess income so will be able to allocate it to the debt to start clearing it...

Brilliant

I'm quite excited about this software

Red-Squirrel_2

Frogletina wrote: »

I'm new to Ynab, but my understanding is that you should not budget in advance of your income. I would get confused if I budgeted with money before it came in as it would be impossible to reconcile the accounts.

frogletina

I'm just talking about the fixed amounts that come out on the same day every month. It helps me to have them there on the budget set in stone and then the more flexible stuff can be worked around them!

Mortgage, utility bills, car insurance etc. are all filled in up till July!

Frogletina

Red-Squirrel wrote: »

I'm just talking about the fixed amounts that come out on the same day every month. It helps me to have them there on the budget set in stone and then the more flexible stuff can be worked around them!

Mortgage, utility bills, car insurance etc. are all filled in up till July!

I've always done a budget for a year ahead so for me Ynab is a new way of only budgeting after your income comes through. However I still have my spreadsheets to remind me how much to allocate when the next month comes around.

I think some people put the amounts due as notes in the first column - eg Food - £400, Rent - £525, due 18th. If you are budgeting in advance I think the payments show as over budgeted.

frogletina

January2015

Red-Squirrel wrote: »

I'm just talking about the fixed amounts that come out on the same day every month. It helps me to have them there on the budget set in stone and then the more flexible stuff can be worked around them!

Mortgage, utility bills, car insurance etc. are all filled in up till July!

My bills such are mortgage, utility etc. are also set in stone, but I can't enter them in YNAB until the income to cover them is in the bank - I get totally confused otherwise and am operating on a minus to budget figure.

I get paid at the end of the month (so all my salary is always going to be allocated to the following month (essentially the next day or so, but for YNAB purposes it's the following month). DH gets paid middle of the month.

Based on these pay cycles I budget in YNAB for those items I know will have to be paid before the middle of the month (covered by my salary) and only when DH's salary hits the account do I budget the items due between mid and end of each month.

This works for me and I just cannot 'forecast' costs months ahead or the 'give every dollar a job' aspect is lost for me because I have no idea what I have available anymore - even in the current month because as soon as I put in all the set bills for the month without DH's salary to cover some of them - we are in deficit on the 'to budget' bit

Edit: I did, in the past, forecast my bills like this in Excel - but only budgeting the money we actually have is working far better for us.

redmel1621

Please tell me this gets easier!
It seems very time consuming at the moment and I can't turn it off.. I have an assignment due Tuesday so really need to focus on that but instead I am sat here playing with YNAB.