Tired of playing catchup!

denialanderror

Big confusion for me is the timings and difference between pay periods (25th of each month) and calendar months. My DDs are timed to go out 26-30th so usually count those as the start of the following month if that makes sense.


So, I've created a category for dental with an "outflow" of £221.44 at end of May which is the credit card transaction, and at end of that calendar month it correctly shows -221.44 for that category. In the June budget I've allowed £221.44 which is the amount I'll pay from my next pay packet off the credit card to clear that transaction.


However, this account is now showing £221.44 credit balance for all future months which I don't think will be cleared by making the credit card payment in YNAB because it won't let you categorize transfers...


May be being a bit thick here!


Seems to be something to do with it just seeing the debit balance on the credit card account but not being able to match the payment to the reason for that balance existing...

snowscreamer

Will explain all when I get home. It does take a little while to get your head around!

denialanderror

Thanks! Really appreciate the help.


I've had a read through the website and think I have a better understanding of what it's trying to do.
This is a particularly unusual month as I settled the finance about 2 weeks ago so think I'll write off trying to use it this month, and start with a budget for next month so it'll just show a credit card debt.


I've had to take £100 out of savings to cover the rest of this months spending which I'm not too happy about but better to use that than pay on credit card and then take it off savings contribution from next month.

snowscreamer

OK. I totally failed on this last night. Ended up popping over to neighbours for a glass/bottle of wine in the garden when we got back from work and was in no fit state when we staggered home to update!!!

It's always tricky when you start off on YNAB, but my suggestion is: only import transactions for JUNE, with the exception of any salary received in MAY. Mark your salary received in MAY as income for JUNE. Adjust your automatic "Starting balance" transactions accordingly after deleting the non-income MAY transactions so that your YNAB bank balance reconciles with your actual bank balance. Then set out the budget for the whole of JUNE. When your June salary arrives mark it as income for JULY, and the cycle continues.

So the transactions at the end of May that you have deleted will count as having come out of the income received at the end of April. YNAB is designed to deal with whole months. It may be that for June you can only budget minimum payments to deal with the credit card debt, but as you become familiar with budgeting and learn where savings can be made this can be gradually increased.

Read this guide on the YNAB website to see how your credit card is set up and pre-existing debt is recorded. Then read this guide to see how to budget for paying down credit card debt.

denialanderror

Ok, so, and this is not a revelation to me, the reality of the situation is, whichever way you spin it, there simply isn't enough money coming in to realise any of those goals before aged 30 or likely for many years after, even if I achieve the first goal and get a better salary, feels like I'll be pushing 40 before I even have a few months wages in savings behind me.


This is difficult for me to contemplate as I really don't think being able to run a decent car and save for somewhere permanent to live are particularly unreasonable goals on a decent salary.


It's also beginning to hit me that my girlfriend of 3 years is permanentely leaving the country in less than 12 weeks. Lot of mixed feelings around this atm, as she's said, it'll be a lot easier for her as she'll be focussed on her new life. Reading into this though I think what she means is it'll be easier for her to find someone to replace me than for me to find someone to replace her.


Her support and encouragement over the last few years has been invaluable in getting me to where I am now, not confident in how I'll continue to progress without her support as the distraction of someone nice to do things with has made not having much money ok up till now.


I'm also acutely aware that I am living on a knife edge with regards to budget, a single months missed salary payment or unexpected disaster would still be felt years later.


Looking at the YNAB method, but not yet with a plan from getting to my current situation to using that method (keeping cash aside for Move 2015 isn't going to leave enough over for paying into accruals till at least September!), I've come up with some calculations below which essentially mean this time next year, I'll be slightly better off, but still with credit card debt remaining and no difference really in terms of lifestyle.


Annual Payments:
Car Tax - 180.00
Car Insurance - 400.00
Home Contents - 70.00
Clothing Casual - 500.00
Clothing Casual Shoes - 120
Clothing Work - 270.00
Clothing Work Shoes - 75.00
Dental - 110.00
Glasses - 200.00
Car - AC Service - 45.00
Car - Full Service + MOT - 178.00
Car - Tyres - 210.00
Car - Unexpected Repairs - 600.00
Moving House 2016 - 2500.00
Gifts (Almost all Family) - 600.00
Totals £5983.00 per year (£498.58 over 12 months).


Monthly Payments:
Rent - 450
CT - 50.87
Elec / Gas - 50.00
Water + Waste - 20.00
BT - 15.00
Netflix - 5.99
Mobile - 59.00
Contact Lenses - 22.00
Food - 200.00
Fuel Work - 60.00
Fuel Other - 60.00
Haircuts - 19.50
Prescriptions - 8.05
Cleaning - 21.00
Totals 12,496.92 per year (£1041.41 per month)

Total Income = 23,448.84
Less Annual Payments = 17,465.84
Less Monthly Payments = 4968.92
Leaves - 4968.92


Less credit card debt leaves 1472.92, or 122.74 per month which seems like an unrealistically low spending target each month given the amount of unexpected bills I've had to pay out for this year.


Again, I realise I am lucky compared to some!

denialanderror

snowscreamer wrote: »

OK. I totally failed on this last night. Ended up popping over to neighbours for a glass/bottle of wine in the garden when we got back from work and was in no fit state when we staggered home to update!!!

It's always tricky when you start off on YNAB, but my suggestion is: only import transactions for JUNE, with the exception of any salary received in MAY. Mark your salary received in MAY as income for JUNE. Adjust your automatic "Starting balance" transactions accordingly after deleting the non-income MAY transactions so that your YNAB bank balance reconciles with your actual bank balance. Then set out the budget for the whole of JUNE. When your June salary arrives mark it as income for JULY, and the cycle continues.

So the transactions at the end of May that you have deleted will count as having come out of the income received at the end of April. YNAB is designed to deal with whole months. It may be that for June you can only budget minimum payments to deal with the credit card debt, but as you become familiar with budgeting and learn where savings can be made this can be gradually increased.

Read this guide on the YNAB website to see how your credit card is set up and pre-existing debt is recorded. Then read this guide to see how to budget for paying down credit card debt.

Thank you and don't worry, I was pretty knackered last night myself. I'm training to do a half marathon so went for a run in the evening to try and clear my head a bit of all this money stuff that's going round in circles without a solution in sight. Wasn't entirely successful.

I've had some success in getting YNAB to now reflect the real situation up as far as September, bit of a hatchet job for month 1 but should work out accurate recording transactions going forward.

Looks like it'll read a - figure each month until the salary payment actually hits, but the budgeted in "month" figure is correct. I'm showing £39 over this month.

I've got accruals in place that should cover most of the move (1700.00 of about 2500.00) in time, this years Service+MOT and the tax. That does leave about 700.00 of expected move costs, plus any necessary repairs unbudgeted for however. These will have to be added to the credit card debt.

Starting an accrual for glasses can wait for a bit as I've only just had a new pair.
AC Service is 2 years away roughly as had to have a new condenser fitted last year to make it work at all and it was recharged as part of that process.

So I suppose the proof will be whether I can keep to the figures I've put in for the remainder of this month, and whether I can have the remainder I expect left over next month!
Need to get better at managing the "misc cash" as I'm terrible for boredom spending.

snowscreamer

Please don't panic that getting to where you want to be is unobtainable because it really isn't. As you start to record your spending and use YNAB to change your relationship with your spending you will adjust to spending less. Just give it time.

We were constantly overspending every month or always hovering around 0 before we started to use YNAB and it has just totally transformed. You will get there. Just take it one day at a time. Slowly the feeling you get immediately after buying something new eg. clothing (in my case, home accessorries!) will stop coming when you buy something new and start arriving when you've had a low spend month, or when you have a pot of money already set aside for a big bill. It's a gradual process. Stick with it! It's taken us 6 months to get to the point where we can budget accurately enough to have a low overspend. Still learning. Enjoying the process.

snowscreamer

PS. I order you to delete your "misc cash" category right away. That's a big part of the problem. Categorise everything accurately and create a Cash account to record all cash spends. Then at the end of the month you can look over your spending and figure out exactly what can be cut to stay within budget and/or how you can trim the spending budget further.

snowscreamer

Oh - and to check you have YNAB set up correctly your June 2015 header in the budget should read the following:

0.00 Not Budgeted in May
-0.00 Overspent in May
+X Income for June
-X Budgeted in June

= £0.00
Available to budget

Where X is the total income you received in May, which you are using to pay for June. If it doesn't look like that then you have done it wrong!

Any income arriving is irrelevant because any income received in June should be marked as "Income for July". That will then affect the July budget only and the June budget doesn't change.

thriftylass

denialanderror wrote: »

SOA if House Share arranged in time
(I should know by this time tomo)
===================================
In

---

Monthly Net: 1955.07

Out

---

(DDs)
Rent: 500.00+/
CT: 50.87+
Elec+Gas: 22.00+
Water+Waste: 27.75+
Phone + BB: 13.99+
TV Licence: 4.02+
Netflix: 5.99
Car Insurance: 32.50
Car Tax: 16.25
RAC: 3.60
Contact Lenses: 22.00
Mobile: 59.00 rather expensive, are you stuck in a contract.
Food: 200.00, this is a lot for one, we are two adults and two young children and manage on £300 very well, check some of the grocery boards etc out
Fuel: 120.00
Haircuts: 19.50
Prescriptions: 8.05
Car Cleaning: 21.00 definitely do that yourself
Clothing - Casual: 50.00, do you really need 50 quids worth of new clothing a month?
Clothing - Cas Shoes: 10.00
Clothing - Work: 22.50
Dental: 8.33
Car - Service + MOT: 14.99
Car - Tyres: 17.50
Car - Bulbs: 2.08
Car - Repairs: 50.00
Gifts: 58.33
Cash: 250.00
==============
Balance 344.82
==============


/ This is estimated. I'd be very lucky to get another house share at the same rental price I am currently paying as prices have shot up in this area in the last 12 months.

Hello, just thought I pop in to give my two pennies worth to your SOA (in red). And good luck on your journey. Things will chnge if you want them too. Good luck