A good budgeting app???

FireWyrm

jadlgw wrote: »

I've got January all set up on YNAB do I have to type all my bills manually into February or does it move everything over automatically at the end of the month?

Depends.

Like most things, you have a number of options and they have advantages and disadvantages.

1) Type all transactions in yourself. Advantage : you have to actually acknowledge each one and decide the category.

2) Most British banks allow for a QIF download option and you can import this into YNAB at designated points of the month (somewhere around 1st, 15th and 29th) should do it. Advantage : you dont have to type them all in every time, but you are limited to reconciling as often as you import. Your balances might not be totally accurate.

3) You use the 'auto' option in YNAB and just set up bills to be added as entries per month (you can do 4 weekly and most other combinations). Advantage : you still dont have to type them in, and it happens on the correct day. Disadvantage, you might get one slipped in that didnt actually happen.

4) You can do combinations...manual entry for ad-hoc spending, routine bills are auto completed and you do an import and reconcile every few weeks....this is what I do. Advantage : pretty much instantly updated and almost always accurate.

jadlgw

FireWyrm wrote: »

Depends.

4) You can do combinations...manual entry for ad-hoc spending, routine bills are auto completed and you do an import and reconcile every few weeks....this is what I do. Advantage : pretty much instantly updated and almost always accurate.

Thank you FireWyrm, Option 4 sounds perfect

SeduLOUs

I'm still an all manual girl for now. Even my regular bills sometimes slightly vary in dates or amounts, so I put the usual debit dates in the category names as a reminder of when to expect them. I budget the exact amounts when I see the bill so they are pretty straight forward, and I personally didn't how like the auto import of bank statements worked for me,

I use scheduled transactions for the annual and 6 monthly things I tend forget, and put them in a few weeks early with estimated amounts i.e. dog vaccinations and car tax/MOT. It serves more as an agenda for me of what's coming up than anything else, and then I 'skip' the payment when it appears and I've booked whatever test or done what I need to, then manually enter the exact amount it when it actually happens (usually shortly after).

FireWyrm

SeduLOUs wrote: »

Even my regular bills sometimes slightly vary in dates or amounts,

Yeah, infuriating isnt it. It never bothered me until YNAB, now it sends me spitting every month.

SeduLOUs wrote: »

I use scheduled transactions for the annual and 6 monthly things I tend forget, and put them in a few weeks early with estimated amounts i.e. dog vaccinations and car tax/MOT. It serves more as an agenda for me of what's coming up than anything else, and then I 'skip' the payment when it appears and I've booked whatever test or done what I need to, then manually enter the exact amount it when it actually happens (usually shortly after).

Ideally, you ought to have forseen those payments well ahead of time and have budgeted a category for them. For instance, I buy all insurances annually now and therefore, I simply took the quote from the last years, averaged it and then divided by 12...that's how much goes into the category each month. By the time the actual bill rolls around, the money is available. I agree that YNAB really needs some sort of diary function for To-Do's and a better way of seeing notes though. I hope this will drop in YNAB 5, but that isnt due until at least Q3 of this year if they stick to schedule.

SeduLOUs

FireWyrm wrote: »

Ideally, you ought to have forseen those payments well ahead of time and have budgeted a category for them.

Oh I do. I just use the scheduler as the list of when they are due (with soonest first) and the estimated amount as the means to 'foresee' rather than sticking that info in notes or category names.

I save up for the expensive ones throughout the year as per your post, but vet jabs are about £40 and my annual optician appointment is £20 etc so there are quite a few bits on there that are every year but that I only need to be considering a couple of months in advance. Yes, I could put £2-£10 a month away for each of them, but they aren't big enough to justify doing that for a lot of them. Most I can afford in the month they are due, so it's often simply a reminder to phone the vet and book him in. A diary within YNAB would be so much better...

FireWyrm

SeduLOUs wrote: »

I save up for the expensive ones throughout the year as per your post, but vet jabs are about £40 and my annual optician appointment is £20 etc so there are quite a few bits on there that are every year but that I only need to be considering a couple of months in advance. Yes, I could put £2-£10 a month away for each of them, but they aren't big enough to justify doing that for a lot of them. Most I can afford in the month they are due, so it's often simply a reminder to phone the vet and book him in. A diary within YNAB would be so much better...

Fair enough. I only slightly disagree as it is often those little expenses that can trip us up badly. They are only small, but just occasionally, they all happen at the same time and you end up slightly less comfortable than you are used to. Perhaps it's my inner OCD talking, but it just seems to make sense to account for everything no matter how small or insignificant.

SeduLOUs

Thanks FireWyrm. I do appreciate that and it's something I intend to move towards in the future.

My budget certainly isn't my 'ideal' yet because I'm snowballing debt. I still pay for car insurance monthly which I know is a stupid thing to do generally, but the interest rate I pay on the insurance is less than what I pay on some of my sub-prime cards, so currently it makes more sense to throw the money at the cards whenever possible.

I am not yet building a 'buffer' in YNAB because it's illogical when that money could be better served reducing my interest payments (although I do have a minimal £100 buffer just to avoid running my bank account dangerously close to zero).

I have three cleared cards now, so my 'emergency' backup is being able to spend one or two of these one offs on the card if something unexpected happens or my annuals catch me out - obviously that's a last resort and it hasn't been necessary yet.

Hoping to be debt free in 6 months or so and then I can really let the fun begin with YNAB!

happybunny86

Just a quick question in YNAB. I already have my account set up and its going well. I want to do one for our joint account but I want to keep them as two separate entity's. Is this possible?

SeduLOUs

happybunny86 wrote: »

Just a quick question in YNAB. I already have my account set up and its going well. I want to do one for our joint account but I want to keep them as two separate entity's. Is this possible?

Depends what you mean by separate entities.

You can create it as a separate bank account in YNAB and have it on the same budget.

OR

You can have completely separate budgets for your personal and joint finances. I don't think there is a way to have them both open at once, but you can certainly have two different budgets saved and switch between them by opening the other file.

happybunny86

Thanks SeduLOUs. I think I meant option two but thinking about it I could probably do either will have a play around. I just didn't want to get confused with partner paying money for bills / savings into joint account and me thinking it was mine to spend but if I assign it I should be okay