You need a budget (YNAB) advice thread

Dandytf

YNAB Help
1st Nov 15 at 10:31 AM
#1
I've done something wrong with YNAB.

I have a starting balance which equals my salary + my salary via bank statement each month.

1. which one do I remove
2. How do I remove it.
Thanks

hiddenshadow

You should adjust your starting balance (in the transaction that says Starting Balance) to match whatever the bank has/had in it on the day in question.

Then you can set up a transaction (one-off or recurring, depends on your preference) to have "Income for [this month/next month]" equal to your salary amount on whatever date you get paid.

Assuming you're setting things up now (and you just got paid today) then you should have your starting balance setup and then your first salary transaction would be December 1 (or whatever date you will get paid again).

You'll know it's setup correctly if your Available to Budget for November matches your bank account balance (assuming you're starting brand new).

If you need to delete a transaction you can tick the box next to it, then select "Edit (1) Transaction" at the top and select Delete.

Dandytf

Thanks I'll need to start again though don't want to.

What you advise makes sense, not sure where i've gone wrong cause initially I setup a recurring payment for monthly pay day and salary amount, though when I download bank statements YNAB doesn't match up with the recurring payment which looks like my budget has x2 amount available to next months budgets

hiddenshadow

If you can search by the amount you could just delete the duplicate transactions.

Dandytf

Its not duplicate transactions as such.

I appreciate your help, it's been months if not longer since using ynab

From what I can see my budget has a starting balance every month -e.g. 1200

When I download banks statement my salary shows 1200 28th every month.

YNAB then shows +1200 +1200 each month.:mad

e.g from ynab Sept
28/09 1219+ 28/08 starting balance 1219

hiddenshadow

Hm, each of your accounts should only have one starting balance (when you created the account in YNAB).

Could it be from importing your bank transactions? YNAB isn't really meant to be used with imports (as it wants you to do everything manually and "be mindful" and whatnot). Just wondering if the bank export has a transaction of "starting balance" for whatever period you're downloading the transaction for, and that's obviously all your previous transactions (already in YNAB but not in the bank export) + the bank's "starting balance" which would then double your amount.

e.g. if you finished Sept with £2,000 and then exported October from the bank

...in YNAB
Date | Payee | Amount | Balance
30/09 | Food | -30 | 2000
...

... bank export for the month of October ...
Date | Payee | Amount | Balance
01/10 | Starting Balance | | 2,000
02/10 | Council Tax | -100 | 1,900
02/10 | Rent | -500 | 1,400
etc.
...

If that's the case YNAB may be treating the first row of data from the bank as a transaction with 2k value, and then assuming that you have 4k available for the month of October.

Hope that makes sense/helps.

Dandytf

"If that's the case YNAB may be treating the first row of data from the bank as a transaction with 2k value, and then assuming that you have 4k available for the month of October."

Thats what happening, thanks-I did start using downloaded bank stements a few months ago...got bored of entering every transaction via mobile.

I have kind of done what you suggested earlier and used my starting balance from today +226;) amended, correction.



I sorted the incorrect starting amount ,I had some transactions with overspent incorrectly set which wasn't helping.

Thankfully I've deleted the 'starting balance' I'll continue with bank statements each month cause when I download end of month there only a few simpler small transactions I have to manually clear, which I add to groceries..much simpler than adding to iPhone each day.

:cool:

ShakeItOff

This isn't so much a request for advice, but just a thank you for this thread! I read the whole thing from start to present, and made the decision 29 days ago to trial YNAB. The advice here, as well as the excellent tutorials helped me set my budget up (with only one fresh start which was wholly user error!), and this is the first month in I-don't-know-how-long that I haven't touched a credit card to see me through to pay day. It is like a light bulb actually switched on. Anyway, cherry on top is that today I won a free copy.

Thanks for converting me! I'd never have heard about it without you!

joedenise

Well done ShakeItOff. It would have been worth the money if you'd had to pay for it.

Denise

January2015

ShakeItOff wrote: »

This isn't so much a request for advice, but just a thank you for this thread! I read the whole thing from start to present, and made the decision 29 days ago to trial YNAB. The advice here, as well as the excellent tutorials helped me set my budget up (with only one fresh start which was wholly user error!), and this is the first month in I-don't-know-how-long that I haven't touched a credit card to see me through to pay day. It is like a light bulb actually switched on. Anyway, cherry on top is that today I won a free copy.

Thanks for converting me! I'd never have heard about it without you!

Congratulations on winning. I am currently using a one year free copy of YNAB (I'm a very mature student :rotfl:). I cannot imagine how I ever managed without YNAB.....er scratch that...you can see from my signature I clearly never managed at all;)

YNAB has made the transition from endless debt to debt management plan so much easier than I ever thought would be possible. I just wish I had found it years ago and then I really believe we would not have been in the financial situation we are now.