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@Espion: your roll over money, that you haven't spent in your categories is going to stay in each category. It won't show any available money until you enter more "income for x month"
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@.twist.: Huh, that's actually more awesome than I would have thought. Kind of discourages you from spending it.
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@Espion: Exactly. Essentially, you've created a ton of savings accounts with your categories and within those savings accounts you have money that can always be saved for "clothing" or "house repairs" or "phone bills". Then using the app is super cool because if you're shopping, and your budget for clothing is $100 dollars, but you spent $50 the other day, you can see right there, that there is only $50 dollars left available in your clothing "saving" category!
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@Espion: Yup, everything @.twist.: said! It is kind of (super) awesome! That's what I love about the rollovers... it allows you to save up for specific categories because whatever you don't spend stays in that category that you assigned the money for.
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@.twist.: @Mrs. High Heels: Awesome. This is kind of like the Dave Ramsey envelope system, except in a way more convenient/realistic format.
And you guys, I *think* I got DH on board! Half the battle, ha.
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@Espion: Getting DH on board is 100% of the battle! I say you've won!
Just to warn you, YNAB can get a little addicting... 
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@Mrs. High Heels: Seriously, I've searched through every thread here and the ynab blog/forums! We have two super big ticket items we have to save up for next year (we have to replace both our vehicles
) so this is going to target our saving big time instead of haphazardly depositing money in savings, then having to transfer it back!I'm seriously thinking of how many people I'm going to tell about this program!
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It's half off today!
We are going to give it a go so be prepared for lots of questions!
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@swurlygurl: Great time to buy!
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@Mrs. High Heels: @.twist.: Ok, here's one of my first questions. With stuff that you're saving for but that doesn't get withdrawn every month (like Amazon Prime, or a vacation), do you just let that stuff build up in your checking account? Or at some point do you move that over to savings? I guess I just feel like it's going to be confusing to keep track of what money is where and what it's for...
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@lawbee11: from what I understand you never look at your checking account just let it accumulate in there.
@.twist.: ok I've got a question too. When you said you were looking at your net worth do you have all your previous debts as off-accounts to see that or?
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@lawbee11: I keep everything I budget or save up for in my checking account.
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@lawbee11: I have a few "on budget" accounts.
On Budget
Checking Account
High Interest Savings Accounts
Visa (used like debit)
Mastercard (used like debit)And a few others, but they are really not necessary for my explanation. If I have subscriptions, I don't put those into savings, because I'm usually saving around 10$ a month and I just don't feel like that's worth it to move it? However, while I was saving up for the first few months of daycare I had about $5,000 in my "daycare" category just sitting in my checking account. I moved it to our High Interest Savings so that while it sat in there while we waited for daycare it would at least help gain interest.
Because my Checking & Savings are both in "on budget" accounts, I can move money between them however I want and my "budget" will stay the same. I hope that helps.
Anything in our "off-budget accounts" are for things like mutual funds and RESP's (or 401K, for you, I guess) and we also have our tax debt in there, too.
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@jetsa: I didn't have any debt when I started YNAB, but I have since added a large tax debt to our "off-budget accounts". When I view our net worth report, the tax debt shows. I pretty much started YNAB with a clean slate and didn't look back, so anything that was previously paid off doesn't show up. Any debt that has been paid, should not show up on your net worth (at least, I don't think so!).
ETA: I should add that I'm not very experienced with how the reports work, I just like looking at them from time to time because graphs are pretty and I like seeing my debt go, ever so slowly, down.
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@jetsa: @Mrs. High Heels: @.twist.: Thanks!!
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Anyone that has prior debt want to let me know how they have it? We have the payments budgeted for but I'd love to see the amount decreasing in the program if possible. We currently do this in excel but it seems silly to have to do both
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@jetsa: You should be able to put any of your current debts into your "Off Budget Accounts". Then, as you enter money into that category and pay it off, and record the transaction, you will see it go down in your net worth report.
Is it not showing a decrease in your report as you make and record the payments?
I don't know if this will be helpful, but this article explains how the reports work.
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@.twist.: I haven't entered it yet but that's exactly what I wanted to know, ok I'll enter it tonight
one other question why do you have your savings as an on budget account just so you can move money to it or?
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@jetsa: Our savings account is on budget, along with our checking account and credit card. Anything where we have money potentially available is "on budget."
The things that are untouchable to us, like our retirement savings and our daughter's college savings, are off budget.
Our savings account has our emergency fund category money and some of our "rainy day" categories like money for car repairs and savings for vacations. The rest of our money is all just in checking.
Would love to hear how others do it.
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@My Only Sunshine: interesting ok. I currently just have checking but I should have more accounts in there it sounds like.
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@jetsa: Well, I have a Tax Free Savings, RESP, Mutual Funds, Universal Child Care, also, and those ones are all in our "off-budget accounts". My High Interest Savings is kind of for things like saving for a vacation, or a new car seat, or christmas presents. Things that I might not need this month, but possibly next month. So, although it is technically a savings, I do use the money in it, from time to time. I just would rather put christmas savings in there to earn high interest for 11 months of the year, than keep that money in our checking for 11 months and not earn me anything. I figure if it's just sitting there for a few months, it might as well work for it's keep.
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@lawbee11: I was on my phone earlier so wasn't able to write a thorough response! The accounts I have "on budget" are my checking account, and my active credit cards. So I only allocate my budget categories with money I have sitting in my checking. I keep my savings account "off budget" because 1) that's what the YNAB founder does, and 2) I would be too tempted to touch that money if I were able to use that to budget. Keeping it off budget allows it to accumulate without ever taking anything from there.
Even larger things I'm trying to save up for, like vacations and holidays, I keep the money in my checking. The only money that is budgeted that I transfer out of my checking is the money I allocate specifically as my "savings category". Any other rainy day categories (vacation, photoshoots, holidays, etc) I keep in my checking.
My off-budget accounts are:
- Betterment (an investment fund)
- Savings
- 529 Fund for the kids
- Line of credit -
@Mrs. High Heels: oooh interesting! One of the reasons I transferred a bunch of money to our savings was because DH had talked with someone from our bank who as asking him why we had such a big chunk just sitting in our checking. That if we weren't using it it would be better served in a high interest savings.
So he got all up in arms about "making our money earn interest!" hahaha I did it mostly to keep him happy, but otherwise it would just be in our checking, too!
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Our paychecks are not going to go into our checking account any more. We are going to just transfer from savings a set amount the 1st of each month. So I would just budget that? Then can I list all out set items as spent even if they aren't out of the checking?
Then at the end of the month, any remaining balance we are going to sweep to another checking to save for special events. Like saving for vacations, new car tires, etc.
Is this going to work with YNAB?
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@.twist.: I used to have the same line of thinking, but the .80% I'm getting from my "high interest savings account" is not really worth it! I just intentionally funnel away money to my savings each month that I don't ever plan to touch unless desperate times call for it. The other stuff we save for, eventually gets used within a year or two! I'll have to find the articles I was reading in YNAB about this.
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@Smurfette: Then you would just make whatever accounts your paychecks feed into "on budget".
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@Mrs. High Heels: I would LOVE to read the article and show it to my husband. There is still SO much to learn about our finances. It's hard to keep up.
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@Smurfette: Or yes, you can just budget the set amount you transfer over to your checking and just budget that!
<<Then at the end of the month, any remaining balance we are going to sweep to another checking to save for special events. Like saving for vacations, new car tires, etc. >> The beauty of YNAB is that you don't have to do something like this! I used to have a few accounts for specific funds (emergency fund, rainy day fund, etc).... but YNAB makes it so you don't have to do this. It's a scary change of mindset, but it's part of what makes YNAB so wonderful.
That's what the different categories are for. Just categorize things for special events, new car, etc. and let the numbers roll over from month to month. It's an automatic bucket, so no need for separate accounts to keep track of the different ways you want to use your money.
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@.twist.: this may have already been answered but if you share the budget with your spouse, can you keep a private budget for yourself? Such as - we both have small separate accounts we use for personal things and gifts. Can we keep those IN the budget but hidden? Does that make sense?
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@Mrs. High Heels: I agree. It makes things really uncomplicated.
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@Smurfette: You could definitely set your savings account to off budget and then when you transfer from saving to your checking (which would be on-budget) as income for the current month. I think that would work smoothly.
I don't think there is much advantage to you moving remaining money into another checking account. I am assuming your idea is that if it is in a different account, it would be easier to leave alone, but in YNAB, you look at your category balances in the software/app, not the checking account from your bank. YNAB separates all the money you have in your on-budget accounts into different pots. You can have a long-term pot of money for long term savings (vacation, cars, etc) and dump any extra money into that pot. Moving around your money to different accounts would be wasted effort, in my opinion. The software will separate it for you.
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@Mrs. High Heels: ok thanks! I think our financial guy suggested that so then we don't see the money in checking and then spent it. Even with this, I will still check our bank balance all the time, so I would do better with not seeing it! At least till we get better about budgeting. We have a hard time sticking to it.
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@Smurfette: I think it's totally fine to do that until you get the hang of YNAB. I've read through the YNAB forums and there are SO many different people who budget differently. Some with 1-3 accounts and some with 1-7! It's honestly only about what works for you and the best thing about YNAB is that it can work with a LOT of different scenarios!
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@.twist.: Yeah we are opening a couple more accounts to keep things all separate. One checking for our condo, and we pay it, what the rent check doesn't cover. Doing a total overhaul!!
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@Smurfette: The biggest change is looking at YNAB instead of your bank account when you are making a purchase. I reconcile my bank accounts every week so I can catch any errors, but I don't look at the actual numbers.
My checking account looks really healthy so if I used that as a metric, I would go out to lunch every day. But since that money has to do a lot in the next month (mortgage, insurance, groceries, gifts, savings, etc), I've already planned what money is going where. If I check YNAB, I know that I have budgeted $40 per week for lunches so I have to chose when I eat out more carefully.
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@TemperanceBrennan: how can you reconcile without looking at the actual numbers? It is going to be a huge adjustment and change for me to not go by what is in the checking account. I think that it is going to help that we deposit our money the 1st of the month and that is it for the whole month.
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@TemperanceBrennan: also I will have to check the bank account, cause otherwise how will I know what DH spends? He won't save receipts.
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@Smurfette: Is he willing to enter his purchases into the app?
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@.twist.: ha! Nope. I have to check our checking to know what he spends. Sometimes he messes up and uses our personal checking instead of his work checking and I have to transfer the money.
Does that mean this won't work for us?
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@Smurfette: haha no. it should still work. I check our accounts often and I transfer money often. No biggie. The program is seriously really flexible. DH only enters stuff if he remembers or has time. He does give me his receipts, but half the time I don't need them! You will be fine!
Just to warn you, YNAB can get a little addicting... 
) so this is going to target our saving big time instead of haphazardly depositing money in savings, then having to transfer it back!
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