You need a budget (YNAB) advice thread

Dandytf

I had a failed attempt at migrating budget from ynab4 to latest YNB.

Nice screen 'your budget it migrating'....0 balances on all my categories

As I said previously i'm continuing with ynab4.

bobobski

hiddenshadow wrote: »

The discount is 10%, not 5%. (I believe it also only applies to the annual price, so you couldn't lock in 10% off the monthly price.)

I would actually argue the opposite. If you buy YNAB4 you get 11 months free for nYNAB, so essentially you pay £30 for 1 year of the new and permanent access to the old. If you decide you prefer the old, you have it, if you decide you prefer the new, you haven't lost anything (may have even gained, depending on the exchange rate).

Otherwise, yes, definitely recommend the webinars. It takes a while to get used to the mindset but knowing that the money you're spending is planned and matches up to your priorities (whatever they may be) has been life-changing for me.

Absolutely right on the discount, thank you.

I agree with the theory behind your second paragraph and had considered that myself but I'm not sure if you need to have bought YNAB4 directly from YNAB for the offer to work. I've heard of people buying YNAB4 from Steam for as little as £7 when on sale so I'd be amazed (and interested) if that counts.

hiddenshadow

bobobski wrote: »

Absolutely right on the discount, thank you.

I agree with the theory behind your second paragraph and had considered that myself but I'm not sure if you need to have bought YNAB4 directly from YNAB for the offer to work. I've heard of people buying YNAB4 from Steam for as little as £7 when on sale so I'd be amazed (and interested) if that counts.

Until they take it off Steam it's a legit sale. Certainly they're honouring the 10% discount for people who bought via Steam in the past, can't imagine they'd treat it any differently now as it's still available on Steam.

greensalad

Trying to get used to nYNAB. It's so different! I can't even work out how to change currency.

Tried to connect to Barclays but it asks for just username and password. I have membership number, password and PIN for Barclays so I don't know what to give to it.

Natwest also didn't work.

getmore4less

Glitzer wrote: »

Happy new year!

So I've decided to start using YNAB4 now that Christmas is over and all the extra expense that brings. Plus it's a new year etc blah blah.

I've got YNAB4 as my trial is almost up and they only offer YNAB4 for free for students, not the new version.

Anyway... I'm a bit stuck as to what to do with everything. Basically, my husband gets paid weekly from his part time job, I get our tax credits and child benefit weekly and my ESA every fortnight. Some things we have to pay out weekly, some things fortnightly, some things monthly. Hopefully my husband will pass the DBS check which will enable him to be employed full time directly by the employer and come off the ESA completely, making it a little easier in terms of pay cycles at least.

Is anyone in a similar position with getting different pay cycles? I don't really know what to do. I've set up recurring payments (both inflow and outflow) so now it's looking like I have a lot more money than I have. Maybe I'm doing something wrong?

Also, I got given some cheques for Christmas, which I paid into the bank yesterday. That money clearly isn't actually available now but do I put them on then mark them as cleared next week or is it best to wait until they are actually cleared?

What you need is a tool that can do proper cashflow analysis forward for a year based on predicted income and outgoings so you can see where any shortfall will be in advance and adjust things.

MSMoney can do this very easily once set up.

No Idea if YNAB can do that properly.

bobobski

greensalad wrote: »

Trying to get used to nYNAB. It's so different! I can't even work out how to change currency.

Tried to connect to Barclays but it asks for just username and password. I have membership number, password and PIN for Barclays so I don't know what to give to it.

Natwest also didn't work.

Currency: "My budget" top left --> "budget settings".

Banks: Do not link your bank accounts - this could result in the bank not paying you back if money is fraudulently taken from your account (you aren't supposed to give your bank details to anybody else). Luckily nYNAB is currently only set up to work with certain American banks, I believe partly for this reason. Also, why would you want to link your bank account? Part of the point of budgeting is that bank accounts "lie" so you should be noting your expenditure as soon as it is made, not when the bank makes the actual payment.

kgw1009

Used to like YNAB but not the new one. I have loaded MS Money and updated all account info. Not sure where to go next tho. Anyone know of tutorials etc in how to take it forward?

Thanks

getmore4less

kgw1009 wrote: »

Used to like YNAB but not the new one. I have loaded MS Money and updated all account info. Not sure where to go next tho. Anyone know of tutorials etc in how to take it forward?

Thanks

The key with MS money is

Getting all your account in(inc Credit cards)
I also use accounts for utilities, they get the DD money and that gets taken when the bills come makes it easier to keep an eye on the credit/debit situation.
Set up cash accounts to manage cash(I do foreign as well as GBP)
Setting up a budget and auto entry for as much as you can.

Deciding what catagories you need/want some are obvious from doing te budget but some depend on how detailed you want to be able to report things.

Learn about split transactions(this is where a single payment say to tesco has multiple catagories like food, booze, household.).

BY doing the budget part early and setting up catagories you pretty much nail the basics, the auto entry cuts down the work to keep things upto date. as most things just fill themselves in(might need a date change on some DD around weekend and value if variable)

I find manual reconciliation helps keep your eye on where your money goes.

Then you start playing with the reporting and forcasting and budget management.

Very quickly you can start thinking year ahead at a time and forget where the money is just what it is getting spent on.

kgw1009

getmore4less wrote: »

The key with MS money is

Getting all your account in(inc Credit cards)
I also use accounts for utilities, they get the DD money and that gets taken when the bills come makes it easier to keep an eye on the credit/debit situation.
Set up cash accounts to manage cash(I do foreign as well as GBP)
Setting up a budget and auto entry for as much as you can.

Deciding what catagories you need/want some are obvious from doing te budget but some depend on how detailed you want to be able to report things.

Learn about split transactions(this is where a single payment say to tesco has multiple catagories like food, booze, household.).

BY doing the budget part early and setting up catagories you pretty much nail the basics, the auto entry cuts down the work to keep things upto date. as most things just fill themselves in(might need a date change on some DD around weekend and value if variable)

I find manual reconciliation helps keep your eye on where your money goes.

Then you start playing with the reporting and forcasting and budget management.

Very quickly you can start thinking year ahead at a time and forget where the money is just what it is getting spent on.

Thanks for that. I have one ALL those things. Where I am at now is your last two paragraphs:

Then you start playing with the reporting and forcasting and budget management.

Very quickly you can start thinking year ahead at a time and forget where the money is just what it is getting spent on.

This is where I now need some guidance on using the software for those two things.

Pixie5740

bobobski wrote: »

Currency: "My budget" top left --> "budget settings".

Banks: Do not link your bank accounts - this could result in the bank not paying you back if money is fraudulently taken from your account (you aren't supposed to give your bank details to anybody else). Luckily nYNAB is currently only set up to work with certain American banks, I believe partly for this reason. Also, why would you want to link your bank account? Part of the point of budgeting is that bank accounts "lie" so you should be noting your expenditure as soon as it is made, not when the bank makes the actual payment.

I think the importing of transactions is supposed to work like importing statements does on YNAB4. The imported transaction will be matched with the manual entry you made. I do agree about not giving your login details to YNAB though, I won't be (not that my online banking it compatible with this feature anyway). Apparently the option to import bank statements is on YNAB's to-do list for this new version. This new version is starting to grow on me as I don't need to download software on to a computer to use it (handy at work when I want to tweak my budget during lunch time) and I don't need to have the Dropbox app stored on my iPhone to use it either which frees up some storage space. :beer: