Quick YNAB Question

joncrip

Morning all!
YNAB (<-- check me out, using acronyms like a seasoned DFW already!) has been recommended to me on a previous thread, so I've signed up to take a look.
An issue I can foresee, which lots of people must have addressed before, is that it seems in order to use it properly I'm going to have to make sure my wife uses it too to log all of her spending. I can't see her doing that. She is by no means a spendaholic, but she just isn't the kind of personal to log every penny on an app. She isn't particularly technologically minded, and I just can't see it happening.
Any thoughts?

Thanks!:)

Pixie5740

Anything your wife spends using a debit card, credit card, cheque, online payment will show up on your statements anyway which you can import into YNAB. As for cash being spent from cash in her purse, would your wife be open to jotting it down in a wee notebook so that you could enter it into YNAB?

What kind of things would your wife be spending cash on? If it's just spending money like a pack of mints and a magazine here and there I would set up a category called "[insert wife's name] spending money". If it's cash being spent on groceries and other household bills just ask her to keep the receipts for those things and you can enter it on YNAB later.

katejo

Is it just that your wife isn't technologically minded or is it that she wouldn't be willing to check that the money is available in the budget before she spends it? Have you had a look at the YNAB forum? I have seen one or two questions there from members whose partners are less willing to use YNAB.

Frogletina

How is the money accounted for on YNAB before your wife accesses it, or is it just shown as income?

Personally, although I use spreadsheets rather than YNAB, I allocate a regular amount each month to housekeeping and sundry items and withdraw most of it each month as cash except when I want to do an online shop. My main spreadsheet shows these total amounts rather than the details.

I suppose it depends on how much detail you want your wife to provide and if she isn't willing to keep records you will need to find another way to analyse the spending.

Hopefully she also has personal spending money that she doesn't have to account for in detail. When I had a partner I would not have wanted him to know how much I spent on knickers or personal items etc.

joncrip

Thanks for all the input. I've talked to her and we're going to work together on the budget for next month tomorrow night. I'm sure we can work something out