You need a budget (YNAB) advice thread

Frogletina

Westie983 wrote: »

Frogletina I'm still trying to get my head around my cash category in YNAB, I want the money in my cash account to be available in my budget and when i take it from the cash account to spent it, I allocate it to what i have spent but it just seems to transfer from my cash account to my purse category but it doesn't appear in my budget just swopping between the two.... still trying to work it all out but in only on day 11....

I'm just working my way through this to see if it helps

http://www.youneedabudget.com/support/article/handling-cash1

frogletina

Pixie5740

Westie983 wrote: »

Frogletina I'm still trying to get my head around my cash category in YNAB, I want the money in my cash account to be available in my budget and when i take it from the cash account to spent it, I allocate it to what i have spent but it just seems to transfer from my cash account to my purse category but it doesn't appear in my budget just swopping between the two.... still trying to work it all out but in only on day 11....

Transferring money from one account to another doesn't alter your budget. It doesn't matter where the money is sitting, it only matters when you spend it. That's when it'll show in your budget.

Frogletina

uncreative wrote: »

Frogletine,

You shoudl have cash as another account set up. Example:

Lets say you have a bank account and a purse.

You start with £100 in the bank account which you will call income for [January] or whatever month you are in. So you have £100 left to budget. Budget the £100 to Household (or whatever your category is). You have now fully budgeted you income, or "given it a job" to use YNAB speak.

How you spend this is technically irrelevant.

If you spend it via debit card you would go into the bank account and add a transaction at which point you would enter the spend againt the Household category.

If you used cash then you need to first transfer £100 between bank and cash account. This will shift the £100 from bank to cash. i.e. you have gone to the ATM ad taken out £100.

Now when you spend cash you add a transaction to the cash account istead of the bank account for household.

Still comes off the Household budget, except its from the cash account rather than the bank account.

If you look at the "how to use credit cards" this explains the principle of spending from different accounts.

Thank you, uncreative.

I missed this post after I'd been out (where I spent some cash after withdrawing money for my cash account!)

I am showing two accounts in the budget, one for the total housekeeping money I budget and one for the cash amount - as one reduces, the other builds up (until I spend from the cash that I have withdrawn). Is that not correct?

Should I just have one account in the budget?

frogletina

Westie983

I understand it doesn't matter where the money is till I spend it but what i want is to allocate my cash balance into "jobs" so for example my cash account has £150.00 I want this money to be included in my available to budget so I can allocate it to my subcategories, I am struggling to do this, atm all i can do is pay for food using my cash account, which reduces the food budget but the available to budget amount doesn't change, all I am doing i swopping the balance from the cash account to my credit card....

I want to not only be able to budget my wages and other income I want to be able to budget my cash savings of £150.

I am trying to see where I am going wrong at the moment I have taken my cash off budget so it doesn't affect my available to budget amount... this problem once sorted should only affect this month of March as I have just started and want to allocate my savings pots into my budget....

going forward once this figures have been updated I can just do a transfer from my cash account straight to the savings pots and the figures will reduce in my cash account and increase in the savings category....

hope this makes sense - Will try subscribing to the credit card tutorial adjoin to see if it clicks as that is the same principle...

Thanks for your advice....

andyfromotley

Yes that should work westie.

a budget account for your household bills etc.

Transfer out of there to a cash account

a cash account for what you put in there all categorised.

To me it seems a bit of a faff, since using ynab i have virtually stopped using cash, i try to pay for everything on my card, it then shows on my bank statement and makes reconciling easier and theres no way that i can miss transactions, if i don't input them they are there on my bank statement.

Its taken me a while to get used to the fact that i don't even have to set my savings into separate accounts, i can just leave it all in my current account. I know what its job is via YNAB. I am still currently shifting some savings to savings accounts but only because previously i couldn't trust myself not to just spend it!

But each to their own. If that way works for you go for it!

Pixie5740

Westie983 wrote: »

I understand it doesn't matter where the money is till I spend it but what i want is to allocate my cash balance into "jobs" so for example my cash account has £150.00 I want this money to be included in my available to budget so I can allocate it to my subcategories, I am struggling to do this, atm all i can do is pay for food using my cash account, which reduces the food budget but the available to budget amount doesn't change, all I am doing i swopping the balance from the cash account to my credit card....

I want to not only be able to budget my wages and other income I want to be able to budget my cash savings of £150.

I am trying to see where I am going wrong at the moment I have taken my cash off budget so it doesn't affect my available to budget amount... this problem once sorted should only affect this month of March as I have just started and want to allocate my savings pots into my budget....

going forward once this figures have been updated I can just do a transfer from my cash account straight to the savings pots and the figures will reduce in my cash account and increase in the savings category....

hope this makes sense - Will try subscribing to the credit card tutorial adjoin to see if it clicks as that is the same principle...

Thanks for your advice....

You don't allocate your account balances to categories, you allocate your income for that month to categories. If your income is £1,000 for March and you transfer £100 from your current account to your purse, you will have already assigned that £100 to categories.

For example I have my current account and my purse on budget. I have my income for March and I have given every £ a job. I then transfer £100 from my current account to my purse by withdrawing the money from an ATM. On my way home from work I stop at the petrol station and I fill up my car with £50 of petrol and buy some milk. In my purse account I enter a transaction for £50 using my petrol category and £1.12 from my groceries category. I could have used by debit card to purchase these things and entered them under my current account in ynab but I didnt, on this occasion I used cash so the transactions are entered under my purse account.

Frogletina

I have two income streams - one of them covers my regular expenses and the smaller one my personal expenses. But when my regular bills increase there is not always enough income to deal with them and I have to dip into my savings. I already have to use my savings for some expenses (holidays and home maintenance costs) and I put lump sums from my savings onto Ynab when I set it up for these costs.

It all seems rather messy and I'd rather simplify things but I'm not the best way to do this.

Can I ask how people deal with interest? One idea I have is that all my interest from savings could be shown as income which may be enough to make it easier to budget.

Some of my savings accounts have the interest added to them which I cannot access, but I am wondering if it would make sense to allocate the same amount from other accounts to my current account and use it as income, and while it is in my current account it will still be getting interest on it at 3%. I have to do a sweep of the interest monthly from some of some accounts anyway as some are maxed out.

It would mean that my savings will not be increasing but that is not a problem. I've been a saver for years and feel that now it is time to make use of my savings.

frogletina

Westie983

I think I may have cracked it I was just doing a transfer from cash account to my credit card but this wasn't changing my budget screen I imputted today a transaction from my current account to my credit card as a Pre YNAB category and it reduced my red amount to the same as the statement so looks like I put the transaction in via YNAB and then do the transfer to balance the figures...

So far so good, till pay day...

takingcontrolatlast

Well i took the plunge and signed up for a free YNAB lesson - didnt get off to a good start for me as i couldnt hear the teacher - then they got pc literate and i had to sign off and go via email link - which i did do and then still couldnt hear them -

im not pc literate so its a bit daunting for me but from what i have learnt so far i could follow their principles

Feeling old aged as im not pc literate

lilahloo

I have just found the time to download the free trial and am setting up my budget.

I run two current accounts. My salary is paid in to one and I transfer an amount each month to another account that I use for fuel and groceries. All my direct debits come out of the first account.

Do I need to set up two accounts on ynab so it reflects the ins and outs of my current accounts?