You need a budget (YNAB) advice thread

uncreative

Iwani wrote: »

Hello all... I've been using YNAB for a month and I absolutely love it. I've had to make several adjustments along the way but can actually say for the first time in my adult life I am not overdrawn and it's payday tomorrow! Which includes a lot of car repairs this month I hadn't planned on.

Brilliant - well done, its a great system isnt it!

Iwani wrote: »

What is the correct thing to do if you overspend in a category? For example, if I spend £5 more than I budgeted for groceries - what I've been doing is taking £5 out of another category, say fuel, and adding it to the total budgeted for groceries, so I am no longer over budget.
Is that right, or should I be taking the money out of fuel but leaving the original groceries figure alone, to show as having gone over budget?

Yes this is rolling with the punches, probably the key to the system. Before you used YNAB, I bet you simply accepted the fact that you overspent by £5. Now you have to change your budget so that it still balances to £0. So that overspend of £5 on groceries has to come from a dropped budget of £5 for something else in a different category.

Therefore when you get to the end of the month, overall, you have not overspent; its just that overspends in some categories are "paid for" by underspending in others, as opposed to paid for by an increase in debt....

Iwani

Great, thank you I wasn't sure if I was visually fooling myself, if I adjusted it so it looked like I hadn't overspent. But your explanation makes sense!


One thing I am struggling with a little, but it's nothing that can probably be helped, is the fact that I know I need to put something in the rainy day categories, or things like clothes, and I'm doing so, but immediately I need to use that money on repair or new shoes, etc., so as soon as I budget it it's gone! I need to build up in those categories, so I can have more available for these things, but I simply don't have enough income to do it yet.
A work in progress, but there's only so much you can do with your income I guess?

uncreative

Exactly. You should budget to do some saving. The target to start off with should be one sixth of your take home pay. If you are paid monthly then after 6 months you will have an entire months pay in the bank as a safety buffer.

Instead of taking out of the savings buffer, try taking money out of some kind of "treat" like cinema, or takeaways, or something. Its this element of "sacrifice" that gets the most reward, as you are still saving that way. But, like you said, if your income is tight it is hard if you havent budgeted those things in the first place, but you can see how powerful a tool it is for not getting any deeper into debt through simply not monitoring your outgoings.

Kermie

Iwani: you can see the tutorial videos which I believe are the same as the webinars on youtube, so no need to stay up late! https://www.youtube.com/user/YouNeedABudget
The benefit of doing the live webinar is that they give a free copy away at the end of each webinar, and many people on here have been successful. I liked it so much after the trial I was more than happy to pay for it!

Iwani

I'm seriously considering sending the kids to my mum for a night so I can stay up and do the webinar! I have watched youtube, read forums until my eyes turned square, and even play the podcasts in the car. I think I have a pretty good grasp on it but there's some things I'm probably winging. It's a learning process!
But I am amazed at how powerful it has been to get me under better control, something I've never managed with all my spreadsheets over the years.
I have a student license but could certainly do with a full free copy!

joedenise

I thought student's got the full thing anyway.

Denise

SeduLOUs

joedenise wrote: »

I thought student's got the full thing anyway.

Denise

They do, but you have to renew the license each year by sending off proof that you are still a student (not many people are students forever!).

I had a student license, but picked up a full license when it was on sale on Steam for £7.49.

hiddenshadow

Iwani there are recordings of old webinar sessions here: https://vimeo.com/youneedabudget/videos

You don't get the benefit of being able to ask questions live, but as it's a webinar recording people will have asked questions when it ran so they might cover your questions anyway.

I got a free copy on my second live webinar (seems like 1-2x/month they have their classes at 3-5pm EST), so I would recommend attending a live one if you want to try to get a free copy. IIRC there were about 20 people in each of the webinars I did, so your odds aren't brilliant, but certainly better than 0.

andyfromotley

Getting it free as a student is super simple. Send them a scan of your id card and some evidence of your course and it comes back in a couple of hours.

I will buy a copy in due course as i swear by it, but now i am determined to pay less than SeduLOUs!!

Iwani

Thanks for that hiddenshadow, will check it out! I have my student copy for a year at least now...