What are your categories?

saving4ourfuture

Hello,


I have just downloaded YNAB and I am determined to get a handle on our finances and budget for everything as its the small unexpected things that crop up that threw me out last year.
I'm really just looking for inspiration as to what everyone else budgets for so that I can make sure I have everything accounted for the coming year.


Thanks for your help!!!

FireWyrm

I use master and sub-categories. As a crude split, you might want to consider master categories based on time for a start...so three master categories for Annual, Monthly Bills, Monthly Ad-Hoc as well as perhaps a 'Birthdays' master category. Then, if you have any debts, you'll want to categorise them. You would probably want a 'buffer' category and perhaps some basic categories for 'ad-hoc' spending such as restaurants, takeaways, haircuts. Finally, you will almost certainly require envelopes for MOT, CarTax, Household Insurance, Petrol, Other Travel, Food etc.

Giraffeseeker

Everyday expenses are at the top of my screen so I see them easier in the app:
Groceries
Petrol
General Spending
Eating out/takeaways
Beauty/Hair
Son 1 expenses
Son 2 expenses
Pets

Then rainy day:
Gifts
Dental
School Uniforms/trips
Car repairs
Christmas
Emergency fund
Holiday

Then monthly bills, and last debt repayments.

My debts are off budget accounts so I can see them coming down and so the monthly repayments are dealt with as transfers.

Toomuchdebt

I have mine as follows

Monthly bills such as gas/electric/phone/car insurance-anything that goes out by direct debit monthly
Then I have Everyday Expenses-groceries,fuel,pet food,milkman
Then I have Rainy Day funds-road tax,car repairs,home appliances

But I think I'm going to change it and separate the Annual bills into their own category. I'm hoping by next year I will be able to pay for my car insurance in full instead of monthly.

Also in the titles I put the amount due and date due by. On the Annual bills I have the total needed and the monthly amount needed.

Pepperoni

I change ours every now and then to make sure they are still suitable etc.

At the moment they are;

Bills
Mobile phone
House insurance
Council Tax
Bank account fee
Water
Broadband
Mortgage
Utilities
Life insurnace

(listed in order that they come out during the month - i.e. mobile phone bill direct debit comes out first!)

Other expenses
Food
toiletaries
laundry
work-time (i.e. when husband buys work lunches etc)
cleaning (window cleaner, etc)
medicine
dentist
petrol
credit card

Annual costs
hair
beauty
clothing
childrens activities
car maintenance
tv licence
presents

*listed as annual costs as its basically spent here and there over the year and I just add an equal amount to it each month!

Savings
children
emergency
house stuff
holiday

Disposable
childrens stuff
days out
eating out
take-away
fast food
nights out
activites
magazines etc

personal money
* any 'gift' money goes here next to name of person it was for

saving4ourfuture

Thanks, a few different ways to do it. I think I am going to have a play about with it and see how it will work best for us, I think im just a bit worried about making sure the money is there when we need it. I get paid monthly and my husband fortnightly, I think I have my head around this. Once we have a buffer built up I will find it easier its just building it up. Im so impatient I want it now though!!!

FireWyrm

You will find that the answer to your questions are not straight forward. There are as many different ways to categorise spending as there are permutations on the theme and no one can say what will work for you. That is, however, the trick. Start by noting down on a piece of paper, all the categories you think you will need off the top of your head. Next, go back, add anything annual. Next go over it again and organise it into sensible master categories and finally, go over it yet again to ensure that it will be both granular enough and yet not too tight that you lose interest or forget what categories are supposed to represent. Finding the happy medium is the trick and as such, I have only had to add 2 additional categories since I started. You will inevitably require changes, but try to weigh up the pros and cons of each change because it is harder to re-organise if you have been going for a while. When you make spends, you also need to have a mental list of categories and have decided which one fits the purchase before you do it. This concentrates the mind wonderfully and stops frivolous spending. For myself, the lack of a suitable category will often highlight the frivolity of the purchase to me and so, I refrain from doing it.

Ask yourself what questions you want to answer with the accumulated data in the future. The budget isnt just about controlling spending in the moment, but also about making your financial life more efficient and so, six or more months down the line you will want to review how you spent your money and on what - hopefully taking the opportunity to trim the fat where necessary. Likewise, you may also discover that you routinely spend on something that you dont have a category for. In this case, if you are resolved to continue doing so, then ignoring that behaviour pattern will not help you in the long run, it needs to be accommodated instead.

Finally, all this is very exciting now and you are flush with your new found enthusiasm, but this is not just a short-term fix for a problem, it should be an entirely new way of life. You should believe, absolutely, that you will continue in this new method of book keeping for ever more and so, it becomes habit rather than chore. It helps if you set up some goals for yourself along with accounts that are carefully categorised to highlight success. I have a debt category and whilst money goes out from this category each month, there is a reciprocal payment into an off-budget account which represents the debt. I can see my debt coming down, I can use the graphs to see net worth improving but I dont have to concern myself too much with the money going out since this is all automated. In effect, I am paying off debts without even thinking about it, preferring to concentrate more deeply on maintaining spending within busy categories I can control like food and fuel.

sexyshark

dumb idiot question coming

How do I put in an income for jan

Giraffeseeker

Go to your account. Add a new transaction. Category = income for January. Make sure the figure is in the "inflow" and save :-)

speakingofart

Go to enter transactions, choose income for January and then enter the amount. It will then appear in your available to budget and you should budget it down to zero in your categories - not necessarily spend it, but plan where you want that money to go!

sexyshark

many thanks done my budget for jans payday and according to YNAB I will have £420 left over. Lets see how that works