I've been hearing a lot about YNAB so I just signed up for it and I'm struggling to figure something out. I've used other similar sites (Learnvest, Mint) to categorize our spending (personal, baby, etc.) to keep track of how much we're spending in each category. Is there a way to do this in YNAB with credit cards specifically? We do 99% of our spending via credit cards, which we pay off in full, in order to get points, but all I can find in the guides on the YNAB site is that I have to basically follow a debit-credit system with credit card transactions, which feels really time consuming, especially since we intentionally don't keep any money in our checking account. Anyone else do this and if so, is there an easy way to set this up or is this not the right platform for me?
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Which YNAB do you own? YNAB 4 or NewYNAB?
I only ask because YNAB 4 is kind of a work around and New YNAB has new credit card specific tools that I haven't used yet.
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@.twist.: I literally just signed up online today so I assume it's the newest one?
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@Mrs. Carrot: Yes. The online one is the new one. So, I grabbed this from their website ( eta: nvm, it was for the classic ynab not the new one, I will continue my search), but I haven't used the new system so I can't help you more than that.
I do plan on getting the NewYNAB within the next year, but I have 4 which works perfectly fine for me for the time being.
EDIT: try this: http://www.youneedabudget.com/learn/guide/user-handbook#credit-cards-debt
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@Mrs. Carrot: is your main question how you can keep track of your percentage spend per category? In YNAB 4, there were reports you can pull and they'd show you charts, etc. to help you analyze your spend...
I got this YNAB email not too long ago, and some features like reports aren't available yet in the New YNAB (I think it's coming soon though)...
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Here is what you need to know about YNAB 4
YNAB 4 is still all yours. You don't have to switch! We’ll officially support it all through 2016 (keep it running great!) and then unofficially for as long as possible. YNAB 4 resources are here.The new YNAB is a paid upgrade. Five dollars per month, or $45/year for you, because you’re a YNAB 4 customer. (If you purchased YNAB 4 recently, you’ll get the new YNAB free for several months.)
As a YNAB 4 user, you’ll notice some things not yet in the new YNAB: reports, account search, manual bank import, data export, and payee management.
Full data migration from YNAB 4 isn’t yet available, but will be in the next few months. But you can do a “Fresh Start” migration.
YNAB 4 and its companion mobile app is being renamed “YNAB Classic.” (We confused many of you with that change, making you think you had to upgrade. We are really sorry about that!)
Here’s what you need to know about the new YNAB:
It’s an entirely new product, requiring a brand new login. You’ll need to create a new account.
The companion mobile app is all new, which you can grab here. You’ll use your new account login to log...in.
The new features don’t end with Direct Import, Goals and Age of Money. You can also use it on any computer with a browser. We simplified credit card handling! And more … Read all the details in our Transition Guide.If you’ve been around YNAB a long-time, we’d encourage you to take The New YNAB class, which will help walk you through the differences and new workflows.
The new YNAB is really new. If you love YNAB 4 to the moon and back, it may not be quite ready for you yet. Give us some time to build out some of those features I mentioned above that you would likely miss. If you’re still pretty new to YNAB, or have fallen off the YNAB wagon and want back on, maybe the new YNAB is exactly what you’re looking for.
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As for credit cards and whether you use checkings (or not), that shouldn't matter. YNAB makes it so you're not thinking about things as separate buckets. Just make your credit cards and savings account an "on-budget" account, and when you're paying off your cc's, make sure you choose "transfer" so your cc's and savings account are reconciled correctly.
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@Mrs. High Heels: I think I might be struggling because it isn't importing my transactions (it sounds like it treats the previous transactions are a previous balance, essentially) so I haven't yet seen how to categorize them and move around all the things. I'm glad to hear that people do use it in this way, though, thanks!
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@Mrs. Carrot: the first month is weird with credit cards because you log your existing balance as a debt (since those purchases weren't in your YNAB budget) and then you have to budget money for that "debt." Once that's done I think the process is much more straightforward. You just use the credit card like an account and then when you pay it, you log it as a transfer between your bank account and credit card.
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@My Only Sunshine: That's really helpful, thank you!
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