You need a budget (YNAB) advice thread

Rosylee

I know what you mean Iwani. But as there are just something's that require cash I do have an account called my purse. YNAB makes the point that the account is only the location of the money which YNAB does not care about. It only cares about the budget. It took me forever to understand this.

So it doesn't matter that you have £5 in your purse, as it will no doubt be assigned to a category. And if you spend according to your categories, that £5 could potentially sit for days. I have never in my life had money sit for so long in my purse. I always felt compelled to spend it.

I usually draw £20 for my purse account to pay for parking, or locker fee etc. Then just add transactions as I would for the current account.

But the beauty of YNAB is that you find a way that works for you.

Iwani

Oh I do have an account called 'wallet', it's just it would been a problem, as all the jobs my money is assigned to for the rest of the month, aren't jobs that I would pay by cash (some are savings, the rest is fuel and groceries).
I suppose I could have made a separate groceries transaction to go buy cheese or something separately to my usual online order, to use up the £5 in my wallet, but it'd have been creating work for me and an annoyance.
That's the only place the YNAB not caring about the location of the money falls down slightly for me.
I mean, YNAB might not care if all my money sits in my wallet, but my bank account would care if all the DDs came out and the money wasn't in there...
I'm being picky, of course, as obviously I'd just keep all my money in the right place. But it's not always a case of assigning that money a job, if I have no current jobs that require cash.

Pickiness over though, still loving the way YNAB has transformed the way I handle money!

Blue_Bird

Iwani wrote: »

Yes that's how I'd do it too. But I also detest dealing with cash now as it doesn't suit my budget at all!

I owed my boyfriend £15 for half of a gift and annoyed him deeply by insisting on a bank transfer, as taking out £20 from a cash machine for him would leave me with a £5 problem in my wallet :rotfl:

I'm with you on this; I'd usually have frittered but seem to be hanging on to it all now which is strange!

Rosylee wrote: »

I know what you mean Iwani. But as there are just something's that require cash I do have an account called my purse. YNAB makes the point that the account is only the location of the money which YNAB does not care about. It only cares about the budget. It took me forever to understand this.

So it doesn't matter that you have £5 in your purse, as it will no doubt be assigned to a category. And if you spend according to your categories, that £5 could potentially sit for days. I have never in my life had money sit for so long in my purse. I always felt compelled to spend it.

I usually draw £20 for my purse account to pay for parking, or locker fee etc. Then just add transactions as I would for the current account.

But the beauty of YNAB is that you find a way that works for you.

That's a smart idea Rosylee, I might have to give that a go. I did try having a '"purse account" when I first started, but it fell by the wayside.

Two other points - I didn't have my "piggybank" savings accounts on budget initially and now I have - and I'm really glad I did. Anyone thinking of taking the plunge with this, I'd really recommend it!

I used to do 'sealed pot' type efforts, saving all my £2 coins, but now every £ has a job, I don't really use cash and have loose change to put in

I really like these motivational 'games,' I'm just wondering if/how other YNAB users work these?

Blue

pennies_from_Heaven

Regarding the 'cash' issue, one of my jobs pays me in cash, so I always have some about. I have an on budget account called cash, and every penny is given a job, and exists in the virtual pot with other income in different bank accounts.
I just keep an eye on the balance of the cuurent account in ynab, and if it looks to be getting a bit low and the cash a bit high I'll just pay it in at the bank.
Then on ynab mark it as a transfer from cash account to current account (as that is what happened in a physical sense).
The key with ynab is to do on the budget what you do in real life - I.e if you go to the cash machine mark it on ynab as a transfer from bank to cash (or purse), for the purposes of the budget it is still in a pot of available funds, as long as it is in an on budget account, no matter which one!

SeduLOUs

pennies_from_Heaven wrote: »

Regarding the 'cash' issue, one of my jobs pays me in cash, so I always have some about. I have an on budget account called cash, and every penny is given a job, and exists in the virtual pot with other income in different bank accounts.
I just keep an eye on the balance of the cuurent account in ynab, and if it looks to be getting a bit low and the cash a bit high I'll just pay it in at the bank.
Then on ynab mark it as a transfer from cash account to current account (as that is what happened in a physical sense).
The key with ynab is to do on the budget what you do in real life - I.e if you go to the cash machine mark it on ynab as a transfer from bank to cash (or purse), for the purposes of the budget it is still in a pot of available funds, as long as it is in an on budget account, no matter which one!

Fair play to you for being able to manage this.

I'm completely self controlled when it coes to my bank accounts, but I'm absolutely useless when it comes to cash, so I try to avoid carrying it whenever possible. I've decided now not to even attempt to track it to the penny in YNAB anymore as I simply can't do it. Now if I withdraw £10 cash for an £8 lunch, I just mark the outflow as £10.

That way it doesn't really matter what happens to the £2 leftover. If I'm particularly good and stick it in my change jar, then eventually it will re-enter my budget as income whenever there's enough in there to justify counting and banking it.

My method only really works though because I use very little cash. I only withdraw money maybe 1-2 times per month. If it was any more often then I'd absolutely want to start tracking the cash I have as a virtual 'account', as my spending reports wouldn't be reflecting the reality of my spending.

joedenise

I don't track my cash spending - I just have a category called "Spending money" and when it's gone it's gone. I don't WAM into it.

It would be a nightmare to track as I use it to pay for things like coffees, magazines, personal hygiene products, ie things that I don't buy everyday but sometimes forget to buy when I'm in the supermarket which would then get included in my grocery budget.

Might not work for everyone but it works for me.

Denise

MrsSave

I have a 'treat money/cash' account. What I do is withdraw all the money from the bank and then show it as spent on YNAB at the beginning of each month. This is then in my purse for smaller spends such as car parking, buying something that is only a pound or so, etc. I don't show these transactions on YNAB, just show it as cash withdrawn. It works for me. I did try showing each and every small transaction on YNAB but I got fed up, and would lose pennies here or there.

MoneyMission2015

I have a 'Cash' account on YNAB but the way I do it is, I will reconcile it at the beginning of the week, spend throughout the week and then at the end of the week I will just count up what I have left & reconcile it again.


Sometimes I'll just round it down to the pound and put the spare change in a jar. This way only really works for me though because I only ever use cash to buy lunch at work or the occasional top up grocery shop, so I always know which category to put the spends in to.

l3xi

A bit off topic here... I bought a YNAB license and it didn't really work for me, I'm not disciplined enough to enter transactions and to keep track of things. Is there a way to transfer the license to someone else, so that I don't break their T&Cs? Is it allowed? Legal? Thanks.

hiddenshadow

I'd send an e-mail to their support team to ask, but I'd guess it's not within their T&Cs. (They make the software to sell it, after all, so if you give your copy to someone who would otherwise buy it they've lost a sale.)