-
@birdofafeather: hahaha you like ALL months to zero out?? That's like me and emails. If I see something in my inbox I have to click "mark as read" even if I don't read it.
I prefer not to budget next month's income until it all comes in though because I feel like it gives me a better idea of how I should allocate that money for the month when I see that one lump sum!
-
We just started YNAB today! We're excited to make some serious financial changes in our life.
-
So funny to see this thread today! My husband and I were just talking about 2014 and agreed YNAB was one of the best choices we made all year! We had some significant medical expenses and didn't have to dip into savings and we were able to save money for a new furnace.
And I'm in a wedding in September but instead f feeling that huge expense looming over me I've been able to start setting a little aside every month. Cannot say enough good things about YNAB.
-
I am super psyched to get back into YNAB this year. We did well toward the end of 2014, but December was kind of nonexistent from the budgeting standpoint. And man, I'm feeling it now as I regroup our finances back into normal mode!
-
I don't know anything about YNAB... Fill me in. Why do I need this??
-
@LindsayInNY: http://www.hellobee.com/2013/01/25/you-need-a-budget/
-
@lawbee11: Thank you!!
-
@Mrs. High Heels: After linking to your blog post I re-read it...did you ever get a tshirt from Jesse??
-
@lawbee11: I did! He sent us four shirts - for the friends who referred us and one for me and one for DH. I wear it as a sleep shirt all the time!
-
Financial health is a big goal through 2015 after several years of financial setbacks. We our purchased quicken and I hated it. It was so labor intensive. Is YNAB similar? I really need an application that would help us tackle our debt.
-
@Nskillet: You do have to input all of your transactions. But this takes little to zero effort. There is an iPhone app that makes it easy on the go as well. (It is about as difficult as pulling up your calculator and punching in a few numbers.) (And it is set up in a very easy to manipulate and easy to interpret format. No complicated spreadsheets.)
The benefit to YNAB as opposed to other budgeting programs is that it makes you give every dollar a job. It doesn't allow you to forecast money you "might" have or might not have, which is great for people on variable budgets.
When every dollar has a job, I look at YNAB and NOT my checking account. For example, I know I budgeted, say, $300 in my grocery budget, and I already spent $50. When I go to the store, I don't look at my checking account which has $1500 and think I can buy anything. The rest of the $1200 may be already allocated for rent, utilities, etc. So my "checking account" for groceries is really only $250.
It is also really useful to set aside money in small increments for things you know will be a big bill later. Our insurance is about $600 every 6 months. So I put $100/month in my insurance category. And when June rolls around, it doesn't hurt to pay that bill at all, because I've already accounted for it.
And, dare I say, it is actually kind of fun. You can monkey with your budget all you want or need to, because it is meant to be fluid.
-
I definitely want to get a month ahead this year. Plus, we're planning a trip to Japan at the end of the year, so we have to save, save, save! That means more meal planning at home, and less eating out. I think that's our biggest downfall.
Plus, my biggest thing is that I always input all of our regular bills ahead of time, so my month is always in "red" until our paycheck comes. I need to stop doing that.
-
Ok I jumped on the band wagon & got the free trial. I've not been great at budgeting and figure it's a great place to start! I've got it set up for what I think we'll spend in each category. Now for the month of January I record everything we spend & aim to be in those set limits, right? And then I can adjust where needed if my estimations are off? Hoping this will be a great program for me as I always look at the bank account & think we've got extra money when really we don't!
-
@MommySLP: You got it. Record all of your transactions. If you find that you overspent in one category, you can shift money from another category to 'cover it'. It is budgeting, so you have to be mindful, but things do happen. I highly suggest watching one of the videos and checking one of the earlier YNAB threads on here. There were some really great tips on how 'bees set up their categories.
-
@Espion: thanks! Going to spend some time reading & watching videos to see how it all works!
-
Exciting to be joining! We had December as our trial month and have just purchased it to start off the new year - so far so good! (well for day 2 of 2015!)
It is making us so much more aware of what we are spending and where. DH mentioned YNAB to me a few months ago and I immediately said yes I know what you are talking about as I had seen the previous threads on it on here!
-
Ok, I may try YNAB one more time. I can't even remember why I gave it up last time, but something with not being able to do all my transfers/accounts correctly. AKA it wasn't an issue with not keeping up with it, I can never get it set up right!
So, step 1.... DH is paid bi-weekly.... I have it as a "scheduled transaction" because its auto-deposited. But its not giving me that money to budget... I assume I should still leave that transaction as scheduled right?
PS right now our goal is to pay off debt and then focus on living off last months income.
-
@T.H.O.U.: hm. I find bi-weekly payments kind of annoying. Just because it might be schedules to come out on a sunday when it really needs to come out on the monday. YNAB doesn't account for weekends or holidays. Our mortgage is bi-weekly and I do have it as a scheduled transaction, but I always end up having to change the date when I'm approving the transaction. Is this the same kind of problem you're having? It shouldn't matter what kind of payment style you or your husband have, YNAB is very flexible for all payment types.
I AM BACK. The last few months I fell hard off the bandwagon. My dad is ill and I was sick and L was sick and it was all just a bit overwhelming.
But, stressing ALL of December about our budget and overspending and whatnot really made me realize that I'm much happier being in charge of our money and so I needed to get back into it. It took me TWO hours to reconcile everything this morning, but it's done and I feel confident about our budget again.
I'm so happy to see so many new faces in this thread! If anyone has any questions, I would be totally happy to help out (and so would many other bees!).
-
@.twist.: i have a question-- so my husband and i direct deposit our paychecks into multiple accounts; one joint one for our bills, everyday spending, etc.. Then we have some money going into personal checking accounts (mine is for "fun" money and his is for fun/car payments-- our cars were financed through his credit union so we got a lower APR on the loans if we did auto-pay/DD).
So, should I include ALL of our income and ALL of our accounts onto my budget? Or just our main checking acct? If I do main checking acct only, I would leave off our car payments since they come out of my husband's personal fun acct. But our gas, car insurance, etc. still comes out of our joint account. This is confusing!
-
@HabesBabe: Personally, I would have each account in YNAB. The only thing I don't have in YNAB is our mortgage (but we still account for payments, we just don't want to see that debt. LOL). So, I would have all your accounts and I would enter your pay checks into your accounts exactly the way they are deposited into your actual bank accounts... I hope that makes sense.
Here's a screen shot of our accounts:
Well, I was going to post a screen shot but, apparently HB doesn't want to grab my crop job and only wants to post my entire budget.... sooooo nvm.
ETA: but for an idea, I'll type them out.
Budget Accounts:
Joint Account
High Interest Savings
Visa
MastercardOff-Budget Accounts:
RRP - Me
EPSP Investment - Me
TFSA
RRSP #1 - DH
RRSP #2 - DH
L Universal Child Care
Mutual Funds - DH
RESP - L
Chequing Account
Tax Saving - DH
Line of CreditI like seeing our net worth, so I have all of our accounts except our mortgage.
-
If you pay off your credit card every month, do you still have a category for your credit cards?
-
@DisneyBee: I don't have a category for my credit cards, but they are listed under my accounts because if I spend from them, I make the transaction from that account. I think of it the exact same way I think of my joint checking account.
ETA: To clarify, if you're recording a cc transaction, it would look something like this:
Date: Jan 2, 2015 Account: VISA Category: Target Amount: $15.00
-
@DisneyBee: No. I mark the transaction like it's from my checking account then clear the transaction once I pay the cc.
-
CC is hard. We want to include ours to ensure its paid off but still record the spending. I think it will go like
1) Income into savings
2) budget normal monthly categories
3) record transactions from normal budget categories but paid from CC account
4) but then I'm not sure how to record the payment on the credit card without double budgeting that amount (aka budget 200 for gas but then budget 200 for paying on CC)? Or do I just record the cc payment without a budget category? -
I think I may have answered my question above. Theast step is a transfer from savings to the CC. But the CC balance doesn't seem to be updated from my phone. Maybe on the computer?
Next question - how do I carry forward balances again? So cell phone budget is $240 (just to round up a bit since tax fluctuates). This month it was $236, so $4 under budget. I want that $4 to just go to general extra to be spent this month (don't want to grow a balance in the cell phone budget).
-
@T.H.O.U.: In your budgeted column, click on the drop down menu (to the right of your number when you hover your mouse over it) and click balance to zero. Any extra money after your bill is paid will go back into your "available to budget" amount. Then you can distribute it into which ever new category you want.
-
@.twist.: thanks!
-
@.twist.: thanks for the cool trick with regards to zeroing the balance. I love these helpful tips.
-
@DisneyBee: of course! There are so many cool little tricks like that. I usually balance to zero all my bills, because, usually once you pay those you won't owe anything for the rest of the month. But I always try to create roll overs in other categories (likes clothes!) because, who knows when I'll get the urge to go shopping and buy something! I always want money in that category.
-
Do you always put your "available to budget" to $0 every month? My DH always gets paid once a month at the end of the month, so I always have leftover in my "available to budget." Therefore, I just assume that it'll roll over the next month.
-
@DisneyBee: Certain things I zero out. When that happens, the money becomes "available to budget" and I stick it all in a specific savings category that I let roll over.
Certain things I don't zero out and I let the money roll over in that category. (Like I try to overestimate our gas bill by a bit, because it is always high this time of year. Letting some money roll over pads my gas budget a little.)ETA:
I answered your question completely wrong. I'll leave the above up in case it helps someone, lol! Yes, it will roll over for use in the next month, or you can divide it up in specific categories where it will also roll over. -
Is there a way to just wipe everything clean and start fresh? I dabbled in YNAB a few months ago, but didn't get into it--I'm ready to get back on the train since we've decided to buy a house this year. But it still has all the annoying half-assed categories and numbers I plugged in last october. I'd really like to just start fresh!!
-
@MediaNaranja: There is a "fresh start" option in the menu. I created a brand new budget and labeled it "2015", so you could also do that.
-
@Espion: Aha! Perfect, thanks! I'll check it out when I get home
-
@DisneyBee: I don't always. Sometimes I'll just let it roll over into the next month.
-
@DisneyBee: I always bring my ATB to zero. You don't have to, but even if you put it in a category you don't use each month, you can still move that money around. The nice thing is money never has to stay in any certain category. It's supposed to be very fluid.
-
Still working to get our budget set up!
Happy first Monday of the new year!
-
@T.H.O.U.: Hope it's going smoothly!
Does anyone have any financial goals for 2015?
Mine are:
1. Stick to YNAB now that I have "started fresh". I'm feeling rejuvenated and am really excited about this one! (nerd alert!)
2. (serious) Pay off part or ALL (if possible, would be a miracle) our tax debt this year.
3. (fun) Save up for a few piece of new furniture that we desperately need in our living room.
-
@.twist.: just documenting and sticking to the budget for now is going to be our goal. I need to add in some others things like the stupid termite bond that's due in February and daycare enrollment fees due in May
-
@T.H.O.U.: I don't know if you do this, but I found the best way to forget about upcoming fees is taking the total and dividing it by 12 so you can budget the smaller amount each month? For example, our annual daycare fees are $50. So that's approx. $4.17/month. It's nice to never have to think about that 50 dollars and it's there when they're due.
You might already do that, but it's a great tip for other people who might not know too.
- Google Plus
- Stumbleupon
- Twitter
- Facebook
- Pinterest
- Favorite0
211 comments