-
@.twist.: we're using Mint b/c it's a mobile app, but I want to join the YNAB thread since you all are regularly update.
our 2015 financial goals
1. Reduce monthly expenses- we created a budget and are consciously spending. Every receipt or bill that we get goes into a drawer for us to review together and we immediately enter expenses into one of the categories. I shopped based on BOGO and coupons at the grocery store for the first time this past weekend!
2. Pay things off. We did this last year for monthly expenses/ purchases that we charged. We want to take this a step further with high ticket items like vacations.
3. Have more money for stocks.
-
@.twist.: My main goal is to be better about meal planning and sticking with it in order to cut down on our grocery and eating out categories. I've been really lax about it towards the last quarter of 2014. I also want to trim in general so we can start funneling more money into savings and retirement.
-
We definitely have financial goals this year!
1. Use YNAB all year and be more mindful of our spending.
2. Pay off our CCs. DH was in law school with no income for 3 years, and now that he's out, we need to work on paying off CCs that we were too lax with!
3. Save for Christmas all year long! -
We have BIG financial goals this year. I'll be starting with YNAB tomorrow, as it is my first paycheck of the year
1. Pay off CC debt. I made my goal last year of getting it below a certain amount. My brother loaned me the remaining balance (
him), so it's really paying my brother back the loan--his interest rates are much more reasonable than my CC, ha! I think that by really buckling down we can probably pay it off in 6 months.2. Save for/purchase a home. I NEVER thought that we'd be able to do this, but I met with someone at my bank a few weeks ago that made me realize that it is not as far-fetched as I previously thought. The owners of the house we live in have hinted that they are thinking of putting it on the market sometime in the summer--I'd rather not have to move into an apartment for a year and then move again when we buy a house. I hate moving, I've done it every 18-24 months for the past 10 years of my life, and I'm done!!!
3. Be at a place where we are not freaked out by a car repair, medical emergency, etc.
4. Save for a trip to DH's home country!! He hasn't seen his family in 4 years and his mom is in her mid-70s now. I know he misses them a lot and would like to visit around Christmastime. This is good, because it gives lots of time to save!! The main cost will be airfare, as food, lodging, etc is quite cheap where he's from. Plus, we will most likely stay (and eat) with his mother or sister.
-
Ooo! Good idea!
1. Stick with our grocery budget, which will mean meal planning and prep!
2. I got my 401k started, and that is automatically deducted, so an easy one to stick with.
3. Save, save, save for a fence this summer.
4. Start building up a down payment stash for a new car. My car is paid off, but it is 12 years old. It may not last too much longer up here, and DH won't let me carry the kids in it because he feels like it is unsafe.
-
@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: Congrats on coupon shopping! I tried it for a few months but ended up falling off the coupon wagon. haha
@Mrs. High Heels: I am trying to find a happy medium with meal planning! I LOVE the fresh 20, but it is a lot of work (for me at least!). It would be nice to do it sometimes and not stress about it other times. I'm not great with meal planning on my own though, so I'm still working on this one.
@AmandaB8: Good luck with your goals!
Paying off your CC is such a great feeling. You'll do great! @MediaNaranja: So kind of your brother and I hope you guys get to go visit your DH's family, sounds like that would mean a lot to him!
@Espion: Ugh. we need a new car too and I keep putting money into a "new car fund" but then something comes up and I keep having to take money out of that category. So frustrating. Hopefully you do better than us with our new car! ahaha
-
I am TERRIBLE with coupons. I shop at Aldi's instead.
-
@.twist.: I would love to find a way to distribute those expenses over several months, but I can just never figure out a good way to budget and still "save" the money at the end of the month. I still don't have my YNAB budget running where I can rely on it for balances. Any suggestions?
-
@.twist.: That's exactly what happened to our car fund last year...it all ended up in other categories!
-
@AmandaB8: I love Aldi! We easily save $50 a week since we started shopping there. They should pay me for the PR work I do for them since I tell everyone to shop there!
-
@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: we use mint as well.
I have only one financial goal this year, and that is to save my entire salary. It's going to take a lot of discipline, but I know it can be done.
-
@.twist.: I have a year subscription to the Fresh 20 too, but I don't like it. Wish it had worked out for us. I am not a huge fan of the meals, and there are always at least 2 meals I don't like, so I end up spending time revising the grocery list and stuff anyway which kind of defeats the purpose of Fresh 20 for me. So I'm going back to my old meal planning ways!
-
@Espion: @.twist.: A lot of my "rainy day" categories end up covering other funds too! Always some expense or another that comes up!!
@AmandaB8: I suck at couponing too! I love the Target Cartwheel app though - that's probably the only couponing I can actually keep up with.
@looch: What an incredible goal! We just try to save one of my paychecks during those 3 paycheck months.
-
@T.H.O.U.: Hm.. Ok, I hope I am answering your question, if I'm off track just correct me!
I would try to write down each of your expenses, monthly and annual (and anything in between). See where you need to create a "monthly saving" rather than annual fee. I'll use my same example as I did before. If you have a $50 dollar annual fee, divide it by 12 and note that you only need to save $4.17/month. (for another example, we have a bill that's due every 3 months, so I just divide the total by 3, so every 3 months I have exactly the amount due).
In YNAB, I make a note in the category (if you hover your mouse over a specific category, a little paper icon pops up, click on it to make a note). I would put in there something like:
Daycare: $1,000/month
Annual Fee: $50/year = $4.17/month
Total Budget: $1,004.17/monthNow, when your daycare bill comes up in February, you pay $1,000.00 and you have $4.17 left in that category. You just leave it. It will roll over and after your $1,000.00 is out for your March bill, you will be left with $8.34.
I really hope I understood what you were asking and you're not all like "duh". hahaha
-
@Mrs. High Heels: Oh, I do hear you there. I often will go visit the archives for different weeks because the week they're offering doesn't sound great. I guess, I love the premise of it. It's healthy and not wasteful.... but yea. I totally hear you.
@looch: That is incredibly ambitious! I would love to be able to do that. Good Luck!
-
@.twist.: Yea I get how the budget would look, but I don't deal well with keeping track of those random $4.17 left in my bank account. I want to do it for things like insurance premiums, christmas gifts, etc so it adds up to a fair chunk of money that is left in my account that usually ends up spent unless I can get it out of my checking account. So until I can really rely on the budget and ignore my account balance, I don't think I can get there.
-
@Mrs. High Heels: @.twist.: considering I have failed the last 2 years, I am not so sure why I think this year will be any different, BUT, i am committed to trying.
-
@T.H.O.U.: Ah yea, you definitely need to get to a place where you aren't looking at the money in your account....
If you have a budget set up in YNAB all you need to do is look there and see that that $4.17 is saved for that category and it's not actually for spending.
@looch: Well, I'm sure in your failed attempts you've managed to save something? So, that's better than nothing and a success in my books!
-
@T.H.O.U.: I thought I would jump in here even though I know you asked @.twist.:
I am the same way as you so what I do is create a line for each "rainy day fund" I have. A couple of examples are below.
Christmas ($1,400/yr; $140/mth)
Car Stuff (Tires $800, Battery $160)For the Christmas stuff I divide the amount over 10 months so that I can start shopping in October. For the Car Stuff line my SO researched the price of what we need and then I just make a note of how much we need to have saved up. I don't have a fixed monthly contribution to this line because I like to make sure all the necessities are covered before we put money away for things like this.
It is hard to get comfortable with trusting YNAB and ignoring your account balances but if you have a chequing and savings account that are both on-budget then you could move it to the savings account and still keep track of it...
-
@T.H.O.U.: I can't seem to "not spend" that amount either - I'll be honest, at the end of the month I send that money to a separate saving account.
-
I need some help with the budget portion. We pay our childcare in one lump sum every 6 months but pull it out of savings. Then we pay that savings account back each month from our income. How do I get my budget to stop telling me that I'm overbudgeted because I do this?
Edit - I think I figured it out with the features available by clicking on the overage amount.
-
@looch: third times the charm
what's your game plan? Any tips & tricks for using Mint? We are using the bill pay and budget apps.
-
@mediagirl: Did you figure it out? Is the reason you keep it in savings and then take it out because it's stays put for 6 months?
-
@.twist.: yeah. I guess it's confusing what we do but we have one big savings account. We pull 6 months daycare from it at the beginning and middle of they year. Then throughout the year, we just replace what we took (plus more) with our monthly income.
I figured out the Budget by just creating a new one. Haha - essentially starting fresh in January.
-
@mediagirl: I'm kinda just thinking out loud here (and if you are happy with the way you've set it up, just disregard this!), but could you set up another basic account with your bank for your daycare payments? Put that account "on budget" in YNAB and that way it will show in your "available to budget" money, where you can put it in your budget category. But the actual physical money is in a separate account still? That way your savings isn't "on budget" and not being used as often, either? Just a thought!
-
@.twist.: that's not a bad idea. I may talk to my husband about that. Thanks for the suggestion.
-
@mediagirl: It may not be the answer, but I totally understand why you want to keep that money separate from your day-to-day stuff.
-
A little late on the wagon, but my goals for 2015 are:
1. Eat out less. Towards the end of 2014, we ate out often because I was just too tired to cook. So I have to start meal planning.
2. We're planning to go to Japan at the end of the year, so my hubby and kids can meet my extended family. I hope it goes through.
3. Pay down my student loan and my hubby's car payment. I want to just get rid of all debt, except my mortgage, of course. -
Reviving this thread a little... We just downloaded the free trial tonight! I'm actually excited about budgeting, which is a shock! I'm excited to read through this thread to get tips!
-
@creativemomma15: That is fantastic! I hope you enjoy it as much as the rest of us.
Hey all! Wanted to bump this thread. For any lurkers out there contemplating YNAB, I found a great article someone wrote about their top 5 reasons to switch (from mint, but tips nonetheless) to YNAB.
http://mitchelburton.com/blog/top-5-reasons-switched-mint-to-ynab/
HAPPY BUDGETING!
-
@.twist.: I like that article a lot!
AND I have to share a huge victory - WE ARE FULLY BUFFERED AND WE PAID OFF ALL OF OUR DEBT (except our mortage)
It was one of the biggest goals we had before TTC.
-
@TemperanceBrennan: OMG! Wow! That is seriously fantastic. Being debt free (minus house debt) is an AMAZING feeling and to be fully buffered on top of that is the cherry on top! Congratulations! You and your husband should be SO PROUD of yourselves!
-
@creativemomma15: I've had YNAB since September and I still get excited! We can be nerds together
@.twist.: Loved that article!
@TemperanceBrennan: That is seriously amazing!! Must be such a great feeling
-
@.twist.: Thank you! Our tax return helped put our buffer over the top
It does feel so good. I'm excited to budget next month, it will feel like we have so much money, lol!
-
@TemperanceBrennan: Wow! What an accomplishment, many congrats
We are on track to have our consumer debt paid off before our LO comes but we won't be buffered for some time. @creativemomma15: I hope you are enjoying it so far. Feel free to ask any questions you might have and definitely watch/take the classes, super informative.
@.twist.: That's a great article!
-
@mrswin: Once your debt is gone, you can focus on the buffer and it will go by SO FAST. You'll be there before you know it! Good Job!
-
Thanks for pulling this back up.
So....I have majorly fallen off the wagon (after only a month...oy vey). My biggest issue is that I have NEVER been a planner...like, ever, so I'm finding it really difficult to sit down and go "This goes here and this goes here...." and I get the whole roll with the punches mentality, but man--this is hard! Even though I'm motivated to DO it, I can't actually seem to DO it, ya know? Help, lol!
I guess the good news on my end is the following:
-Called and had my student loan payments reduced so that the income from my 2nd job covers the entire payment (and then some, woo!).
-A larger-than-expected tax return means that I can either significantly pay off some of my consumer debt and/or pay off a large portion of a student loan (my smallest loan, but still--it will feel good to get it off the books!!). Either way, with the help of that $$ I can probably pay BOTH off in the next 3-4 months.
-I think we might be in a position to buy a house (!) sometime in the next 6-8 months!! I obviously need some sort of budgeting help to put away all the spare pennies in the house fund. -
YNAB has changed my life. Earlier this month, D had to go to the ER for IV fluids after having a stomach bug. We had a $100 ER copay. 2 months ago, I would have had to put that on the credit card. This time, I was actually able to pay with my debit card thanks to budgeting money into other categories. Granted, I had to "borrow" from some of my long-term goals, but still...the money was actually there and I didn't have to add to my CC debt. That was an ENORMOUS relief. I'm thisclose to paying off my CC entirely, and then I'll be able to sock money away for all of D's upcoming health care needs.
-
I completely fell off the wagon for a year. I just re-did everything in our budget so we're good there. My question/problem is what do you do with the leftover money? It looks like it's just carrying over to the next month, but in reality I put it all in our savings account. What do you do? I'm scheduled for a couple webinars today too.
-
@StbHisMrs: I have a category for "savings" and transfer the leftovers there (or in another investment category). If we're saving up for something, I may bulk up that category too.
him), so it's really paying my brother back the loan--his interest rates are much more reasonable than my CC, ha! I think that by really buckling down we can probably pay it off in 6 months.
- Google Plus
- Stumbleupon
- Twitter
- Facebook
- Pinterest
- Favorite0
211 comments