You need a budget (YNAB) advice thread

LavenderGrove

Hi and thanks to all who tried to help me get my ynab budget to balance.
After trying many additions and deletions I went to YNAB forum.

It was a fault with my credit card account amount on left hand side not balancing with my Balance column - r/h side.

So cleared that up and tada! all balanced.

Thank you all, I'm in love with YNAB again - all balanced and reconciled. Think I'll reconcile more often to keep on top - weekly at least!

Happy YNABing everyone.

:T

Westie983

my YNAB isn't happy with me, hopefully it will be happier after payday on Thursday....

:-)

LavenderGrove

Westie983 wrote: »

my YNAB isn't happy with me, hopefully it will be happier after payday on Thursday....

:-)

Roll on payday.....

Am very impressed by your signature figures !

LG

lazer-zxr

In YNAB ... Ive put in an account for depreciation.
Is this the best way to do it?

I have a caravan, and a car .... so I've created :

Caravan depreciation @ £70 / mnth
Car depreciation @ £140/ mnth

The theory being, that when we want a new caravan, the money will be there to add to the resale value of our current one, to get the one we want .... and avoid debt increase.

Any thoughts?

joedenise

lazer-zxr wrote: »

In YNAB ... Ive put in an account for depreciation.
Is this the best way to do it?

I have a caravan, and a car .... so I've created :

Caravan depreciation @ £70 / mnth
Car depreciation @ £140/ mnth

The theory being, that when we want a new caravan, the money will be there to add to the resale value of our current one, to get the one we want .... and avoid debt increase.

Any thoughts?

It doesn't matter what you call it - I call mine car renewal but it means the same thing.

Denise

Newme2014

Hi all, been using YNAB a few weeks now and pretty much got my head round it all. Just wondering if any of you have tips for being paid 4 weekly, think I've got it sussed but just in case there's any little pearls of wisdom out there...

Cheers

Thistlewhistle

Newme2014 wrote: »

Hi all, been using YNAB a few weeks now and pretty much got my head round it all. Just wondering if any of you have tips for being paid 4 weekly, think I've got it sussed but just in case there's any little pearls of wisdom out there...

Cheers

Hi,

The trick is to only budget money you have so it doesn't really matter how frequently you are paid.
I get paid some of my earnings weekly and the rest on a 4,4,5 week scenario so it's a bit erratic.

What I do to try and create a buffer is to round all my direct debits up to the next £5 eg if my direct debits were:

Water: £17.34 I would budget £20
Mortgage: £448.01 I would budget £450
Council tax: £66.45 I would budget £70

My DDs total £1,267.04 but with my budgeting up to the next £5, I'm actually budgeting £1,350, thereby creating a buffer of £82.96 every month. Eventually, I'll have £1,350 budgeted for the month before I'm paid. At this point I'll begin forward budgeting my other expenses like groceries and fuel.

I include the day the DD leaves my account in the category name, and as of today, I'm able to cover up to the 21st of the next month out of this month's money, so not too far to go.

Hope that made sense

Thistle x:T

oneC

Hi,

I've been using the software for a couple of months now and I'd just like to chip in and say what a fantastic little program it is. The integration with the mobile app works really well and makes it really easy to track and classify all outgoing transactions.

I started YNAB at a time when my finances were a little all over the place - I had just changed jobs and had a holiday planned earlier this month. I overspent on that trip in total (including everything - clothes/food/travel) by about £400 :shocked:. This coupled with the fact I have my MOT in a few weeks and a couple of other unexpected outgoings would have usually meant panic stations... but YNAB is somehow a calming influence :j

I got paid two days ago and the ability to plan out where each penny will go and see how the next financial month will pan out relieves quite a lot of stress I think. I'm even able to include some small savings and start a small "emergency" pot. I'm looking forward to getting more "regular"

So yeah just wanted to drop in my two cents. If you have been reading these posts and are still on the fence as to whether to buy the program or not it's a no brainer from me - buy it!

Thanks for all the helpful posts on here so far :T,

C

ondine

I've started using YNAB earlier this month and so far so good, but I'm not sure what to do about some of my savings accts and 2 my credit card accts - should I keep them on-budget or off-budget? T

Pixie5740

I would put the 2 credit cards on budget categorised as pre-YNAB debt. Since the ISA is your emergency fund I'd keep that on budget but the Kids savings account as off-budget.

Edit: That's just me though, there's not really a right or wrong way.