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@Mrs. High Heels: yep! We logged everything as we spent it, our debit cards were targeted for fraud so we were without them for a week!
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@jetsa: then it's a definite yes!
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@Mrs. High Heels: thanks, I thought so but I needed a second opinion lol
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@jetsa: haha good call!
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Can I just ask a random question on here?
How labor intensive is YNAB? Does it require a lot of tracking time, and inputting information?
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@MrsBrewer: Just the initial setup is a little more time consuming, but once you get that down it is really easy to maintain!
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@MrsBrewer: I would say the set up and about a week of getting used to the ins and outs of the program. You do have to have some type of time set aside for transaction inputting. I mean, if you're not keeping track somewhere, you're not really budgeting right? No matter what program or system you use. No "budget" is going to benefit you if you don't put some work in. That's just my 2 cents.
Personally, now that I'm very familiar with the program, I spend 10-15 mins a week doing everything I need to do in YNAB.
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@.twist.: @Mrs. High Heels: That's what I thought about the initial set up, which absolutely makes sense!
I definitely wouldn't mind spending even a half hour, or an hour every week tracking expenses. Hmmm....maybe I will try the free trial!
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My favorite feature so far is the reports. I love (hate?) seeing the pie charts showing where the percentage of my money is going. I will also admit that I am completely addicted to budgeting now.
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@MrsBrewer: Also remember, you can schedule transactions to come out automatically! If you know your cable bill comes out on the 15th you can schedule a transaction to appear on the 15th. Then all you need to do is "approve" it, instead of typing the date, payee, category, $ amount. You can approve it, or adjust it and approve it. It's pretty slick.
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@Lindsay05: So glad to hear you're seeing the benefits!
I, also, love the reports!
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One more question about this!
DH and I are people that put everything on our credit card, but then we pay it off at the end of the month. That way we rack up reward points!
Would YNAB work for this? I tried Mint.com and it ended up like double accounting for stuff then because I had to put my CC payment somewhere, but all of my budget lines were taken.
Does this make sense?
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@MrsBrewer: Yes! We also put everything on our credit cards! We try to avoid cash if we can help it, and don't actually track our cash spending at all because we rarely use it. I think credit cards makes it easier because it means we don't need to keep rigorous track of our receipts - I can just login to my accounts to see where my spending went and reconcile with YNAB. I only keep receipts for Costco and Target so I can parse out what I spent into the correct categories.
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@MrsBrewer: This is how I do all my banking. I purchase almost 95% of our stuff on Credit and it's paid off before the end of the month. You can set your CC up as an "on-budget" account and it will act as a "checking account". Sort of. As you spend from your CC, it will add a negative balance to your card, but that money is still coming out of your budget. As long as you pay off your CC to ZERO each month, you shouldn't run into problems. Does that make sense? I can try to explain further.
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@Mrs. High Heels: @.twist.: You ladies are fabulous! I think I might get on board with YNAB tonight.....I'm going to talk to hubby about it, because he will also need to be on board 100% too!
I'm glad that I would be able to track expenses still with using CC's.
Twist - I think when it comes down to it I might have more questions, but I totally understand the concept!
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I'm nearing the end of my first month using YNAB, and wondering the best way to handle being over budgeted by $100? We had a super tight month and I don't have any categories with money just sitting in them. I get paid on October 1st - should I just split it to be $100 income for September and the rest for October? Or can I just leave it alone? Not sure what the best way to treat it is!
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@MrsTiger: Is there money you can move out of your rainy day funds? Do you know where you are over budget? I always try and stay at 0. If you really can't move money from anywhere you can split your income but I think you have to mark the paycheck as Sept 30th in order for that to work.
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@MrsTiger: Are you over-spent by $100, or have you over budgeted by $100?
If you are over-spent, you can just leave it until October and add money to the budget category balance you are overspent in October. So say you budgeted $100 for groceries in September (making up numbers, I know that isn't realistic) but you actually spent $120. Your category balance will be in red and negative at -$20. So on October 1, when you get paid, you can budget $120 and your category balance will be back to $100 ready for the next month. Rule #3: Roll with the punches.
If you are over budgeted, that means you have plans for more money than you have - something you really don't want to do. You should move your money around from other category balances so the budget is 0. Just ask yourself what does the money I have now need to do before I get paid on the 1st and only budget to those categories.
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@TemperanceBrennan: Thanks! I realized I am actually overspent...I had just adjusted my budget so that nothing would be in the red so then became over-budgeted. Basically we had to put stuff on credit card that we don't have cash for, so I think what you said make sense to deal with it!
@mrswin: Thanks! I think I confused my terminology. Really appreciate the help!
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@MrsTiger: Glad you got it sorted out. Lots of people confuse over spent and over budget in the beginning!
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@MrsTiger: I did that a lot too - changed the budget to account for overspending. But that threw my thinking about budgeting out of whack, so I keep the categories overspent and fix it the next month or paycheck. Helps me pinpoint where I need to do better.
Sounds like you are on track! Keep it going.
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@.twist.: so we got the trial, and so far, we love it! I admit, it is a little depressing seeing the pre-YNAB debt numbers, but we're getting there
@MrsBrewer: what did you decide? Did you do it? My DH was hesitant at first, but he seems to like it now!
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@LovelyPlum: Yay! I'm glad you got it. We have seen such a difference since we started using it, I am a huge fan! Let us know if you have questions.
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@mrswin: thanks! We've been trying to do something similar for a long time, but my math never works out correctly. We always end up overspending, scrambling, and then feeling guilty.
No more! I am determined to worry less about money, feel less guilty when we spend, and generally get away from letting money run our lives day-to-day. We've paid off a lot of debt already, but there is still more to go, and we have no savings to speak of. Time to make a change -
@LovelyPlum: Once you get it all set up and feel like you can trust the system your stress will decrease so much. Make sure that you get even a small savings/emergency fund set up soon even if it means delaying/slowing the debt repayment a bit, knowing that that money is there will also give you some relief
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@LovelyPlum: We haven't done it yet! This last weekend was really busy for us, so we didn't have any time to sit down and look at it. Maybe one night this week we will though, if not this weekend!
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Hi guys! This is MrsTiger, I just had my username changed to avoid confusion with the blogger.
This month is a 3 paycheck month so we will be able to start saving our buffer - logistically speaking how did you guys do this? I feel like the two ways are to just have a "buffer" category where we park the extra money, or add an extra month's worth of money to each category / bill one at at time.
Part of me thinks it might be better to do it one category at a time because if there is just a large chunk of money sitting in "buffer" I might be more likely to touch it!
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@HappyBaker: For us I have created a buffer category and every month I put extra money in there and once I have enough I will just - it out and use that for the month. I haven't touched it so far because there are other categories I feel like I can WAM from if needed.
ETA: You should do whatever is most likely to work for you. I have seen people do it both ways and it is really personal preference.
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@HappyBaker: We created a buffer category. Once our buffer was built, we negated it out so that all that money we saved would become usable as our buffer. This shows a step by step of it - http://www.youneedabudget.com/support/article/rule-four-live-on-last-months-income
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@HappyBaker: We used the buffer category because there was no way for us to know how much of the money in the category was for spending and what was the buffer.
What you would suggest would work if you have categories with set amounts - like mortgage or cable bills. If your bill is $100, you budget $200 and you pay your bill for $100 and have $100 left over. That works easily.
But when you get to categories like "groceries" you won't be able to tell how much you have for the buffer and how much you have to spend that month. You want to spend $100 that month and put $100 in buffer. You budget $100. Say you spend $50. The next time you are shopping, your category balance will say $150. Unless you remember that you put $100 to your buffer, you might spend the money you wanted to save.
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@mrswin: @Mrs. High Heels: Thanks for the help!
@TemperanceBrennan: That is a really good point - I didn't think about those categories like groceries / gas being hard to know what you really have left if you do it by category.
I think maybe I'll just make a word doc list of everything so I can keep track of how close to being buffered I am for each category / bill...but keep the money itself in the "buffer" category. Seeing just that giant number to reach makes it seem less attainable.
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So we had our first YNAB success moment yesterday. LO's daycare is having a book fair, and we budgeted $20 for it. So we get there, and immediately we find $30 of books that we really want. DH suggested we just use the two $20s in his wallet, and figure out where to take the extra money from later. Money is in short supply this month, so we were both nervous about it. Books are so tempting, though! We took a few minutes to try to figure out what to buy, and we ended up finding another book that we liked better that was also cheaper. Moral of the story? We came home with $19.90 dollars worth of books for Christmas, a happy budget, and felt super empowered!
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@LovelyPlum: Good for you guys! That is awesome.
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@LovelyPlum: Fantastic! That is such a good feeling!
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@LovelyPlum: Good for you guys!!!
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@LovelyPlum: Yay! Small changes make a big different long-term!
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@LovelyPlum: That's awesome!! YNAB has really helped curb my frivolous spending/impulse shopping.
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@HappyBaker: @mrswin: @Mrs. High Heels: @TemperanceBrennan: @lawbee11: thank you! We are still a long way away from solid ground, but it feels great to finally be on the way
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@Mrs. High Heels: @.twist.: Oh gurus....Is there a way to chart big debt stuff, like mortgages? I clearly budget for it each month off the bat, but I'm part masochist and like to see exactly what my debt is, but also want the glee of seeing it go down... Is there a way to do this? The only way I can figure is to put it in an "off-budget" account and "transfer" negative payments to it?
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@Espion: that's exactly what I do! I haven't found a better way.
No more! I am determined to worry less about money, feel less guilty when we spend, and generally get away from letting money run our lives day-to-day. We've paid off a lot of debt already, but there is still more to go, and we have no savings to speak of. Time to make a change 
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