You need a budget (YNAB) advice thread

japmis

LondonGirl252 and headachesrus WE ROCK

*group hug*

enjoy the weekend!

LannieDuck

Hi all, I'm a YNAB newbie. Been using it for two months and still struggling to get it properly set up for myself.

I have a question I'm hoping you might be able to help with. I started YNAB with £2000 in my account as a buffer. In my first month, I made my incomings=outgoings (it was a bit artificial, and I didn't manage to put any away ready for big annual bills, but I'm hoping to improve).

However, this month for various reasons I've had a load of bills in and have had to use the £2000 buffer. This means that my outgoings are more than my incomings. And it means I have a big red 'overspent' at the top of May's column. I'm ok with that, but I seem to have YNAB set up so that the overspend carries forward. Is there a way to stop that? I don't want to have every month from now on recording as an overspend even when I've managed to break even....

edinburghlad

The overspend currently showing in July will disappear in once you have budgeted your July incoming. YNAB will take away the overspend from the amount available to budget for July. You can then budget using the available to budget minus the overspend. This will then remove the overspend and allow you to continue to budget as normal.

LannieDuck

But if my outgoing is closely matching my incoming, I'm never going to manage to remove the 'overspend' properly. And it's not a problem for my finances because it was savings that I overspent (as a result of a one-off issue that won't recur). I'm fine with May showing as an overspend, but I'd like to have it so that future months only show as an overspend if my outgoings are more than my incomings for that month.

I hope I've explained that ok..

edinburghlad

If it's from savings then you should be able to put a negative amount in the category you want to take the money from to correct the overspend?

The other option (if I am correct in thinking you had a 1 month buffer in place) is to stop budgeting a month in advance and only budget for this month when you get paid. The overspend will be removed as you are only budgeting the money you have in your account now.

LannieDuck

Ahh - I was pushing my income forward a month (because I started with £2k buffer), so if I apply it to this month instead, it will correct that 'overspend'. Or I also like your idea of putting a negative amount in my savings category....

Hmm, I'll try both and see which I get along with better. I'll see if the negative savings thing works for me first so I don't mess around with my income settings too much.

Thank you

LannieDuck

Hmm... weirdly May is now showing as 0 overspend, but June still has "-£1300 overspent in May' in the little box at the top, and big red "£1300 overbudgeted".

I wonder if that's because the text at the top runs off my budget accounts, and adding a negative to one of the categories doesn't change the fact that I spent more than my incomings.

I may have to stop budgeting a month in advance to get this sorted out. I'll try that tomorrow - don't want to risk messing things up when I'm this tired!

edinburghlad

It does sound like that you will need to stop budgeting a month in advance to resolve this.
Thinking about it logically. You should only budget money that you have in your account at this moment in time. At the time you set up the budget you had the buffer which allowed you to budget in advance. You have now spent the buffer, therefore you no longer have that money in you account. So by adding the incoming from July to your June income and removing all the budget amounts from July should, I hope, resolve the issue for you.

Good luck

I

Westie983

Hmm... weirdly May is now showing as 0 overspend, but June still has "-£1300 overspent in May' in the little box at the top, and big red "£1300 over budgeted".

Have you tried clicking on the red arrow and changing the option to subtract from category balance rather then subtract from available balance, this will mean you wont get the overspend at the top... ( I believe)

LannieDuck

Westie983 wrote: »

Have you tried clicking on the red arrow and changing the option to subtract from category balance rather then subtract from available balance, this will mean you wont get the overspend at the top... ( I believe)

Which red arrow?