YNAB Help

[noodleskooze]

Ok, I'm determined to figure this program out. 

Which tutorials should I watch and in what order? I can't even figure out how to get started by entering income stuff because I get paid on the last Friday of the month, DH gets paid on the 5th and 20th (unless they're weekends or holidays), and DH also has two part-time jobs that have varying paycheck amounts.

[noodleskooze]

Mar 16, 2015 12:02:42 GMT -5 @vicmo said:

No advice on tutorials, sorry.

But enter income as it comes in. For each influx of cash, ask yourself "what does this money have to do between now and our next payday?" and allocate accordingly. Don't enter income you haven't received yet. Don't budget for expenses in excess of the cash on hand. Spend what's in your categories and ignore the total bank balance when shopping.

But what if our bills are all due before we have the income? I know the purpose of the program is to get a month ahead of everything; does that mean that in the meantime, we will be in the red a lot?

[noodleskooze]

Mar 16, 2015 12:06:45 GMT -5 @vicmo said:

How would you pay them without any money anyhow? Put on a credit card?

We use money from last month's paychecks since we get the bulk of our income at the end of the month.

ETA: Credit cards are involved in some bill paying, but we always pay the balance in full. That's another complication, I'm sure.

[noodleskooze]

Mar 16, 2015 12:17:57 GMT -5 @vicmo said:

Oh dude, any money you have on hand counts as if it were a paycheck you received the day you start YNAB. So you use that to pay the upcoming bills.

Told ya I'm lost! haha 

Thanks!

[carfar]

There is a getting started tutorial I'd start with.

[carfar]

Mar 16, 2015 12:14:22 GMT -5 noodleskooze said:

Mar 16, 2015 12:06:45 GMT -5 @vicmo said:

How would you pay them without any money anyhow? Put on a credit card?

We use money from last month's paychecks since we get the bulk of our income at the end of the month.

ETA: Credit cards are involved in some bill paying, but we always pay the balance in full. That's another complication, I'm sure.

I don't think it will be too complicated for youto figure out the CC stuff... basically it's set up to help you do what you're already doing. You budget the cash you have and if you use a CC to "spend" that money... you use it to pay off the bill. YNAB  basically creates electronic envelopes. 



www.youneedabudget.com/support/video/getting-started-with-three-simple-steps


www.youneedabudget.com/support/training-and-education   (there is a different pay cycles class you may be interested in taking as well.  

[ktw]

Sorry to hijack, but I started playing with YNAB yesterday because I'm feeling guilty that we don't really budget. I'm struggling a little bit with the idea of only entering income as we receive it, and then budgeting it. We are both paid bimonthly, on the 15th and the last day of the month. We also receive a rent check from our tenant around the first of the month. Our income is not variable, the only variation would be "extra" income (my bonus, our raises, tax return, etc...). Our income will be at least x number of dollars each month, barring any kind of catastrophe like one of us getting laid off. We pay everything we can on our credit card, and pay it off each month. It seems like it would be easier to take the entire pot of money and dole it out at the beginning of the month, rather than either budgeting twice when we get paid, or budgeting once, but being in the "red" until the next paycheck. Say I intend to spend $500 on groceries per month, do I have to budget $250 from the beginning of the month until we get paid again, and then budget another $250? Since we put most everything on the credit card, I'm not that dependent on having the cash in my account to pay for the groceries, until it's time to pay off the credit card bill. But if I enter the income ahead, then my account balances are way off. Am I making any sense?

[zarapipe]

@vicmo how many categories do you have? Right now anything random goes into groceries, but that doesn't really give me a clear idea of how much we spend on groceries exactly. Ex. Post office shipping charges, bady party supplies, easter basket gifts...

[glitzy07]

Mar 17, 2015 7:27:35 GMT -5 ktw said:

Sorry to hijack, but I started playing with YNAB yesterday because I'm feeling guilty that we don't really budget. I'm struggling a little bit with the idea of only entering income as we receive it, and then budgeting it. We are both paid bimonthly, on the 15th and the last day of the month. We also receive a rent check from our tenant around the first of the month. Our income is not variable, the only variation would be "extra" income (my bonus, our raises, tax return, etc...). Our income will be at least x number of dollars each month, barring any kind of catastrophe like one of us getting laid off. We pay everything we can on our credit card, and pay it off each month. It seems like it would be easier to take the entire pot of money and dole it out at the beginning of the month, rather than either budgeting twice when we get paid, or budgeting once, but being in the "red" until the next paycheck. Say I intend to spend $500 on groceries per month, do I have to budget $250 from the beginning of the month until we get paid again, and then budget another $250? Since we put most everything on the credit card, I'm not that dependent on having the cash in my account to pay for the groceries, until it's time to pay off the credit card bill. But if I enter the income ahead, then my account balances are way off. Am I making any sense?

I think part of YNAB is all about changing the mentality with which you approach budgeting.  The idea is to only budget money you actually have on hand, so yes to the bolded if you're following the way it's "supposed to be" using the YNAB rules.

We're still not a month ahead, so when we get paid I only budget the actual things I need to pay with the money that just came in.  This means that I kind of split my bills in half and budget for the first half with the money from our first paychecks, along with how much we think we'll need for variable expenses like groceries and gas.  Then when we get paid the next time, I budget for the rest of the fixed expenses and the remainder of the variable expenses.  Technically you could use a credit card if you need to go over your budget before getting paid again, but you will be in the red until more money comes in and then it will be subtracted from the amount available to budget.

[glitzy07]

Mar 17, 2015 7:48:27 GMT -5 zarapipe said:

@vicmo how many categories do you have? Right now anything random goes into groceries, but that doesn't really give me a clear idea of how much we spend on groceries exactly. Ex. Post office shipping charges, bady party supplies, easter basket gifts...

Not Vicmo, but I'll jump in here.  I like to have more specific categories for tracking purposes, so I have the following for my "Everyday Expenses":

Alcohol & Bars
Clothing
Entertainment (I have a note on this category that says "Movies, Music, Activities")
Fast Food
Fuel & Parking
Groceries
Household Goods (Paper Goods, Cleaning Supplies, Home Decor, Diapers/Wipes)
Kids (School fundraisers, sports, field trips)
Medical & Dental
Personal Care (Haircuts, Toiletries, Makeup, Spa Services)
Pet Food & Supplies
Restaurants
Veterinary
Auto Parts & Service

[ktw]

Mar 17, 2015 7:46:59 GMT -5 @vicmo said:

ktw, it's kind of a question of whether you want to strictly follow the YNAB methodology or not. I used to budget mostly like you, and it did work out, but I had to time all of my bill paying based on when my paycheques arrived. Now I'm one month ahead and budgeting on last month's income, so if a paycheque is late by a few days, I don't even notice.

I guess I'm also confused about how I get one month ahead. We don't really have any immediate debt that we need to pay off right now (we have SLs, mortgage, car loan, but no CC debt or anything immediate), and we're in the black (almost) every month in the sense that I just pay for everything and then transfer whatever is left over to savings, and that amount will vary, but is rarely less than 0. I'm interested in budgeting so that we can rein (reign?) in our spending on things like groceries, eating out, etc... and push that money into savings. Also, just to give us a better idea of where our money is going.

So, if I'm looking ahead to April and let's just say our entire income is $1000. Obviously there are certain things that I *have* to pay for, like food, utilities, all of our bills, let's say that equals $600. But then there's the "extra" $400, that I'd like to take and put into a more discretionary category like clothing. We don't necessarily buy clothes every month, but I'd like to start designating money into the clothing category so that when it's time to buy clothes, we have a budget to try to stay within. If I designate that $400 to these "extra" categories, then how do I ever get one month ahead? Or do I try to keep a portion of the $400 to "roll over" somehow and then get myself on my way of being a month ahead? Sorry if this is super confusing.

[glitzy07]

Mar 17, 2015 8:05:39 GMT -5 ktw said:

Mar 17, 2015 7:46:59 GMT -5 @vicmo said:

ktw, it's kind of a question of whether you want to strictly follow the YNAB methodology or not. I used to budget mostly like you, and it did work out, but I had to time all of my bill paying based on when my paycheques arrived. Now I'm one month ahead and budgeting on last month's income, so if a paycheque is late by a few days, I don't even notice.

I guess I'm also confused about how I get one month ahead. We don't really have any immediate debt that we need to pay off right now (we have SLs, mortgage, car loan, but no CC debt or anything immediate), and we're in the black (almost) every month in the sense that I just pay for everything and then transfer whatever is left over to savings, and that amount will vary, but is rarely less than 0. I'm interested in budgeting so that we can rein (reign?) in our spending on things like groceries, eating out, etc... and push that money into savings. Also, just to give us a better idea of where our money is going.

So, if I'm looking ahead to April and let's just say our entire income is $1000. Obviously there are certain things that I *have* to pay for, like food, utilities, all of our bills, let's say that equals $600. But then there's the "extra" $400, that I'd like to take and put into a more discretionary category like clothing. We don't necessarily buy clothes every month, but I'd like to start designating money into the clothing category so that when it's time to buy clothes, we have a budget to try to stay within. If I designate that $400 to these "extra" categories, then how do I ever get one month ahead? Or do I try to keep a portion of the $400 to "roll over" somehow and then get myself on my way of being a month ahead? Sorry if this is super confusing.

I think you have a lot of options to build the buffer.  We're still paying some CC debt, so I'm not focusing on that right now, but using that extra discretionary money after fixed bills you totally could.  You can allocate a small amount to savings with the $400 and then budget out the rest to categories like clothing.  If you don't use the clothing budget, it will automatically roll over to the next month.  Or if you decide that you want to later re-budget it to savings because you didn't use it, you could do that to.  Lots of people use things like a tax refund or windfall to fund the buffer too.  But you can definitely use YNAB without the buffer (like I am currently) and slowly build it up by either budgeting a certain amount of your "extra" to a buffer line item, or re-budgeting at the end of a pay period/month what you didn't spend in the groceries/gas/etc categories to the buffer line item.  Does that make sense?

[glitzy07]

ktw Or, like @vicmo says, you don't have to use a buffer line item and could just allocate the extra money directly to the following month. I personally have found it easier to have the line item until we reach a full month of income as a buffer, and will then start budgeting with last months income once we have the full amount.

The YNAB forums on their website are also helpful and I lurked there for advice when getting started.

[ktw]

Thank you both, glitzy07 and @vicmo. This helps a lot!

[ktw]

Ok, I'm back again. So, my previous "budgeting" system was to have multiple different accounts to squirrel away money for certain things. Like I have a savings account labeled "insurance", "taxes", etc... My eventual goal is to reduce the number of these accounts, and just use YNAB to determine how much money I have for each thing, but I want to get comfortable with YNAB and make sure I actually use it, first.

I'm trying to play with the scheduler function. On the 1st of the month, my bank automatically transfers $500 from my checking account to my car account. On the 8th of the month, a portion of the $500 is automatically debited from the car account to pay the car payment, the remainder is left in the car account as savings for a future car. Is there a way to automate this with the scheduler? Or do I need to manually enter it each month after I've been paid? I want to somehow schedule the transfer on the 1st, so the checking/car balances will be adjusted, as well as automatically schedule the car payment and split that transaction with the remainder going to the savings for a future car. Is that possible?

[glitzy07]

Mar 17, 2015 9:49:16 GMT -5 ktw said:

Ok, I'm back again. So, my previous "budgeting" system was to have multiple different accounts to squirrel away money for certain things. Like I have a savings account labeled "insurance", "taxes", etc... My eventual goal is to reduce the number of these accounts, and just use YNAB to determine how much money I have for each thing, but I want to get comfortable with YNAB and make sure I actually use it, first.

I'm trying to play with the scheduler function. On the 1st of the month, my bank automatically transfers $500 from my checking account to my car account. On the 8th of the month, a portion of the $500 is automatically debited from the car account to pay the car payment, the remainder is left in the car account as savings for a future car. Is there a way to automate this with the scheduler? Or do I need to manually enter it each month after I've been paid? I want to somehow schedule the transfer on the 1st, so the checking/car balances will be adjusted, as well as automatically schedule the car payment and split that transaction with the remainder going to the savings for a future car. Is that possible?

Yes, there is (sort of) a way to do this with the scheduler.  But as Vicmo said, the budget part doesn't care which account the money is in when it shows as available to budget, so you have to budget accordingly.  I currently have a transfer that happens every payday from my checking to a savings account.  I set it up with the scheduler as a bi-weekly transfer and each payday it shows up in YNAB with a message that it needs to be confirmed.  You should be able to schedule any recurring transfers that way.

[ktw]

Yeah, I get that YNAB doesn't care which account the money is in, but I have to keep all of the accounts reconciled, right? So that they show the right balance? So I was just thinking if there was a way to automate the transfer from checking-->car account on the first, and the subsequent payment, so that I didn't have to enter them every month. I think I've got it set up correctly, but it's hard to tell what it will do since it won't happen until next month. Thanks for your help!