You need a budget (YNAB) advice thread

Eyes_wide_open

I use notes. So if i know i am paying something off over 3 months i put the amount in the notes for each month. It acts as a reminder when i am budgeting.

Bublin1

cazmanian_minx wrote: »

You could always edit the category name? I stick my 'normal' amount in brackets after the name, so 'Car maintenance (£20)', 'Gifts (£30)' etc. etc.

That's what I do. Although i still have my pre-ynab paper notes that tell what i should roughly be allocating.

Frogletina

I've budgeted for 4 weeks housekeeping in March, and I've always withdrawn cash weekly each Monday. However - I didn't realise that there were 5 Mondays this month - on my previous budget (pre Ynab) I've shown 5 weeks for April instead. So here I am on Ynab and there is no money left in the housekeeping budget to withdraw tomorrow for this coming week.

However, as I have started my buffer (which has £87.24 in it) I will transfer £80 to housekeeping and withdraw that in cash tomorrow.

I'm still getting to grips with cash on Ynab, and have a cash account as a category, but I think that is muddling things. Time for a re think.

frogletina

Eyes_wide_open

I have spent a lot of time rolling with the punches this month but its a learning curve so hoping as i become more in-tuned with my spending habits there will be less movement.

i think its fair to expect we will make errors initially but we will get there xx

catandy

another convert to YNAB here and I don't know how I managed before it now. It makes total sense to me to see 'pots' of money that go up or down as transactions are made meaning that I can actually relate to how much money I have and what it needs to be used on. Looking forward to 6 months from now when my finances should be settling down and some debts are completely paid off so I can see my net worth start to grow!

aNom

Frogletina wrote: »

I've budgeted for 4 weeks housekeeping in March, and I've always withdrawn cash weekly each Monday. However - I didn't realise that there were 5 Mondays this month - on my previous budget (pre Ynab) I've shown 5 weeks for April instead. So here I am on Ynab and there is no money left in the housekeeping budget to withdraw tomorrow for this coming week.

However, as I have started my buffer (which has £87.24 in it) I will transfer £80 to housekeeping and withdraw that in cash tomorrow.

I'm still getting to grips with cash on Ynab, and have a cash account as a category, but I think that is muddling things. Time for a re think.

frogletina

I've only recently started using YNAB however I've found it easier to have a cash "account" rather than category, this way you can transfer money from your current account to the cash account - technically at this point you've not spent the money it's just sat in another account (your wallet or purse).

You can then enter transactions as they occur from your cash account so you always know what you're spending the cash on and not simply guessing as you would be with the category.

Frogletina

aNom wrote: »

I've only recently started using YNAB however I've found it easier to have a cash "account" rather than category, this way you can transfer money from your current account to the cash account - technically at this point you've not spent the money it's just sat in another account (your wallet or purse).

You can then enter transactions as they occur from your cash account so you always know what you're spending the cash on and not simply guessing as you would be with the category.

I had a cash account and a cash category. I was transferring from housekeeping to cash category weekly as well as transferring from account to purse.

I've just amended all of the payments between the cash category and the housekeeping category and all is well. I've also altered the budget as housekeeping was showing more than I wanted it to for the month (due to some slip ups in my first month) So now I have slightly less money left for the last few days of March, but I have more in my buffer so if I need to use that then I can but hopefully I will not need to.


frogletina

nyermen

Frogletina wrote: »

I'm still getting to grips with cash on Ynab, and have a cash account as a category, but I think that is muddling things. Time for a re think.
frogletina

I've found this very tricky. More so, because I travel on business and therefore have little puddles of foreign currency left afterwards.

Maybe a few others approaches will help, here's how I started with mine (when I wanted to leave the credit card behind for safety)

1) On budget cash account that I withdrew what I needed from bank to it, for the week, when I did the weekly shop. This meant less "extra accounting" than taking out as I needed. Transfers between on budget accounts dont need a category.
2) As I used the cash, entered it in accordingly as normal against the cash account & categories.
3) Occasions where I took more than a weeks cash out, I would have a corresponding "category" I called "cash offset", which I just balanced. It meant that my bank account would never go overdrawn (which can happen as budget = bank+cash, so you appear in the black overall, but the cash means you go overdrawn at the bank).

Now I'm better behaved, I use a card for most things, and carry a weeks cash for lunch time, and I just enter the withdrawal straight against my lunch category.

For anyone who cares, for foreign currency coupled with company expenses, I do something more complicated, happy to detail separately.

Peter.

plymouthscubagirl

Hey you knowledagble lot

I need help. I have been doing YNAB for a few months now. Over the Xmas period I really overspent on categories on my credit card and got myself in a right pickle. Since January/Feb I have been massively converted and have been enjoying sticking to the category budgets. However my bank never reconciles correctly. I'm going to reconcile more frequently so I can try and keep on top of this.
My main problem is that I have got my bank balance correct. However I tallied up the categories that come from the bank account and its about £200-250 adrift. I think I should have just started from the beginning last month really after Xmas-overspending gate and I'm wondering whether I should just do that now really??

KirstyO

I too am now getting a handle on YNAB and it's usefulness. No longer am I spending money on food left, right and centre. I'm being thoughtful in my approach to any spending. it took me a while to get over spending off a budget and not my bank balance, but now I like to smile when my available funds match my bank balance when I reconcile at the end of the week

Worth noting that if anyone is studying you can get YNAB free for every calendar year that you study in. I am doing a part-time, distance-learning course as part of my job. I wasn't sure if I would qualify as it only takes up four hours a week and I work as well, but I just sent them a copy of the invoice for the fees and within an hour I had a response with an activation code (note that the student codes simply extend the trial period to the end of the calendar year, but if i'm still working on my course next year I simply get an email off my college to prove it and I will get another code for 2016!)