If you used your savings to pay for something how is it hard to write a note to record that? You can budget them in the next month: 1 In the header of the budget, scroll forward to the next month. I realise the premise of 'only spending what you've got', but for anyone who may have moved beyond living month to month and has some reasonable capital to distribute, the lack of any flexibility around how category balances are handled (and various other limitations) makes YNAB a frustrating product to use at times. I get paid at the end of the month, and following the YNAB rules, I give every dollar a job by answering the question "what do I need this money to do before I get paid again?" Releasing the money in July in order to budget it to the exact same category in August is unnecessary. jenmas Thank you. Credit Overspending. YNAB gives you two options when you overspend in a category. How much we can safely pull out per month at age X, age Y. So I will continue to use YNAB 4 as long as possible. The dollars are already in the envelope. Nothing wrong with that. I understand it's not your preference, and you liked the way you were using it before, but this was a conscious decision on the part of the developers not to allow anyone to use their product that way anymore. So there is a negative medical balance at the end of last month, and now there is too much in medical expenses for this month. Thank you. And the iOS app is superior to the YNAB 4 iOS app. It's really frustrating not having this feature any more! At the end of the month, there was still $50 in the clothing envelope. It doesn't feel fine. Feel free to post any news, questions, budget strategies, tips & tricks and advice related to YNAB. I guess I'm going to have to apply my family savings to my education for this month and then remember to put it back in the right category next month. It's simply a consequence of having a finite amount of money.). Ceeses  I'm just trying to follow the YNAB approach and it seems like they put the budgeted amount front and center. I want YNAB to allow me to go over and under a budgeted figure per category, month to month, like it used to, without me having to adjust figures up and down all the time. When those red flags start appearing it causes great anxiety for me. I know how much I want to spend on clothes. I find the web version has a nicer interface, in some ways, than YNAB 4. So you move the cash from the other category and when you are reimbursed, that cash can now go anywhere. YNAB doesn't describe that in the Support Documentation, and most people don't think of it on their own. Your gas is still $100. There's nothing wrong with beginning again. Tomato Cobra And to follow your envelope analogy, what is important, most of the time, is how much is in the envelope in total (Available column), not how much you have put in this month (Budgeted column). Depending on timing, that movement is either automatic or it's not. I had no idea. So you're actually right that it's not necessary that it be there. Agent99 Okay, but respectfully, if they're not able to track down overspends on credit at month's end causing their credit card payment categories to get out of sync, they're not ready to have a tool like the red arrow. You put $100 in gas, $100 in groceries. , lindsay_g I read "vodka and ice cream"! THANK YOU! That said, this does not really reflect the way the money is being spent. I want to see my budgeted amounts in this month, but I can't just budget it all in the month after I get paid because I still need to spend some of that money in the last couple days of the month in which I am paid. YNAB wants you to distribute the capital as you go along, every month, in and out of every category, which is tiresome. I could carry it over to the next month as a negative balance (my preferred method) or let YNAB automatically bring the category balance to zero (by taking money from what I have available to budget for the next month). But it is not doing this. I apologize for the connotations becoming offensive. Why would you want to do this? ), This naturally reduces the amount available elsewhere, but that is the case with any high priority category (e.g., Rent/Mortgage). (If you sign up for a new credit account (e.g., at the store), I'll address it at the end. Otherwise, the excess will just carry over into next month’s “available to budget” balance and you’ll have a chance to assign it a new job. I need several workarounds to get to how I want to budget, which was fairly natural in previous versions. And so forth.) I don't know the exact amounts, and I feel the tool is forcing me into an unnatural framework. I am so desperately missing the function from YNAB 4 of being able to carry over deficit to next month. Each month, you ha… And that shift in perspective really frightened me about the web version of YNAB. Beige Lion it's not a workaround, it's reality. I haven't seen it in a couple years. When your financial situation changes (e.g., one of the installments drops off, you get a raise, or priorities change elsewhere in the budget), you reassess what you can add in at that point in time. You made it this far! Beige Lion If you're concerned about having a fixed amount budgeted to medical, you can always offset your move by moving money in a later month from medical to another category. There are 2 options: The easiest thing is two separate transactions. 10 calories. If the month hasn't rolled over yet, you can budget an additional $10 to the spending category, and it will move automatically to the card payment category. If YNAB allows you to carry over the overspending in a category from month to month, then that also means you can leave that overspending in the category from month to month until the end of time, and that is doing you no favors. I'm cranky about the fact that there's no alternative to give me what I want at any price, but that's not going to get Coke to change the formula back. YNAB does this by subtracting any cash overspending from your To be Budgeted in the following month. I thought it was clear that YNAB is not in the same league as organizations that are commonly recognized to be cults. The less important have to wait -- that's reality. It will stay orange until I budget enough to the category to meet the goal. Logged pipercat. What numbers won’t? It seems like a case of YNAB thinking they know exactly how everyone should run their finances, rather than providing flexible tools so we can run them as we see fit. The general approach to budget toward the highest priority first, then on down the list ensures the important stuff gets money. 26 replies Oldest first. Faness I budgeted X dollars for a category at the end of last month and need to move that figure to this month. When you overspend with cash, you spent all the money in that category, plus some money from your other categories, so there is a risk of over-drafting your actual bank account. Am I missing something/ Like Follow 3. What happens if we buy a house at Y amount, selling our current house at X amount. Heres an example from my life. lindsay_g You probably seeded all of those reimbursable categories with your own money, first. Because it normally means you are spending more money than you have available. I have medical expenses in January. You need money for rent, so you take an envelope and write "rent" on it and put whatever you need in the envelope (e.g $100). When you overspend using cash/checking, YNAB will reset that category to zero if it's unfixed at the end of the month, and remove that amount from your TBB. But the software works just fine without ever referring to it--you can use the move money tool to move money from TBB to categories and from one category to another. where everydollar has you create a “new” budget every month (with all categories reseting to zero each month—unless you mark them as funds), YNAB is more fluid month-to-month. I have a paper envelope, identified as clothing spending. You should be proud! Been waiting 5 years for the Stealing From the Future fix... YNAB book topics online: https://support.youneedabudget.com/r/q5w48j, I have the honor to be your obedient servant, Not sure when I became a cheetah...but I'll run with it. Ceeses Thanks for the detailed and thoughtful response. Now, if you want to pay off your credit card in full, you need to budget $10 directly to the card payment category. I suspect, as Move Light Sound Life does, that you're floating your reimbursements from the budget rather than as CC debt. Let's go through the process if you had real envelopes. Until then, continually fretting over what should be -- by definition -- a lower priority is counter productive. Yes, YNAB insists you mirror your budget to reality, so you can't construct any sensible concept of forecasts or allocation of funds over time, just real-time tracking and endless adjustments. I need the flexibility to plan out over a years time not just month to month. I just tell YNAB that new income will cover my “over” spending. This would, hopefully, limit the use, but it could still be open to abuse. Yikes! YNAB does not carry over that overspending to the new month -- that money has been spent. So if they are going to remove the Red Arrow, the need to provide some indication that you have created CC debt with your overspend and someone needs to give you your money (if a reimburse situation; one of the most common use cases). I've checked the settings and do not see a way to do this. You mentioned that the negative numbers are fine. Additionally, one can get an easy indication of the first issue -- that you need to move money to the CC category -- but you have to go against YNAB's recommendations to get it. In YNAB 4 you had a couple options. New YNAB assumes you want to carry debt  and just accommodates that automatically if the account is defined as a cc. Is there any feature of the tool or some kind of "hack" that people use to deal with this concern? Maybe you're saving for a vacation, pay a bill twice a year, or you’re planning for Christmas (hint: It comes in December this year). Because of this, it is important that you hold your budget accountable. But for an envelope like "new car", you want to accumulate month after month, so month 1 the envelope will have $50, then month 2 there will be $100, etc. If the product doesn't meet your needs anymore due to their conscious choice, then it doesn't make sense to keep paying for it. Click that to open up the month navigator. But your budget tells you you don't have anything left in Available in the eating out category. Let’s take a look at a few months of a happy new YNABer as they work to get a month ahead. I have multiple budget items that I know I will need money for and may not have the funds now. It's not okay to have negative numbers in your budget, because it means that you are either budgeting money you do not have, or you are spending money that you don't have. Usually,  the best way is the envelope analogy. Confusion could be eliminated with a simple UI addition to the header to summarize current month overspending. I've checked the settings and do not see a way to do this. If you can't add funds this month, in subsequent months you budget directly to the credit card payment category until the balance available to pay the card matches the amount owing on the card. A New Month Might Make You Nervous. How much from each? Yes, I have to cover it from my own money first. That's what I'll do. dakinemaui  bevocat  Thank you for your responses. The best way to do that is to use a categorized transfer in the relevant transactions rather than a normal categorized (non-transfer) transaction. It’s an exhilarating feeling, really. Is the method for everyone? This inconsistency leads to errors. So you could select "mortgage, cell phone, internet" and choose "Budgeted last month" and then select "utilities, groceries, gasoline" and choose "average spent.". On the rare event I have one, I end up thinking, why did I every like this? You can't spend $100 on gas or you'll break the bank. Again, the average user just won't do this. Accounting for going “over-budget” is easy with YNAB. For instance, "Medical" is a tax-related category and at the end of the year I will not know how my money is really being spent. What is not clear to me is whether this feature can be used to automatically enter a monthly figure, or whether you need to go down line by line each month and click on the "previous", "average" etc for each item. It can forecast under a myriad different conditions. The more and more I read these types of posts, the more I understand why they chose to eliminate the red arrow. Yes, there should be a reimbursement tracking mechanism, but it should be a category group that is backed by category within that's positive. If I went over or under, I'd adjust to what I spent and reallocate the rest of the money. This means, if you had some money available from a previous month in a category and decide not to add any money this month: Budgeted column equals 0 and Available is positive. If you keep spending over $1,000 you’ll go into debt. bret It's been suggested by dakinemaui . ), Working to Get Smart at budgeting, finances and life. YNAB does not let you carry over negative category balances. Previously, I used to estimate about how much I'd spend per month on categories (ex: $200 on restaurants) and I'd enter this as my budget amount at the beginning of the month. That's how you build up money to pay annual expenses or emergency expenses or over years to buy a car. That said, second thought -- I'll post Tracking account info in a subsequent post. If you want to keep things "together", you can record a split transaction in the CC account: Net: $900 Split 1: Transfer from Checking $900 outflow Split 2: Transfer from the Tracking account $100 inflow categorized as TBB Split 3: $100 outflow categorized as TBB. YNAB is an allocation budget based on cash envelopes, so let's use a different visual. Now, we know what you're thinking. Most of the generic colas taste more like Pepsi to me, which I don't care for. If you use credit, you create debt that can be paid back over time. Using YNAB becomes a ton more relaxed if you can get a month ahead of your budget (where the income you bring this month goes towards next month). I assume this is on your normal CC. I don't see why this isn't more clear, why there wouldn't be a "Move To Current Month" type function. Violet Cleric You can select any number of categories to apply any given quick budget option to all those categories at once. This concept of giving every dollar a job (i.e. The budgeting software that forever changed our budgeting is called YNAB (pronounced “why-nab”), short for You Need A Budget. Slate Gray Zebra Two thoughts -- the first is that tracking installments is unnecessary because that information is shown on your monthly statement. What are they? If you use cash/debit, that's actual money you no longer have access to. You can do this one by one, or category group by category group by clicking the checkbox to the left of the category. You need to have money for that auto insurance renewal that comes up every 6 months, right? It doesn't matter when you receive your next paycheck, you'll know exactly where those dollars are needed as soon as they're in your account. I was replying to Silver Orca saying "there is a bit of a cult around this." For example, you buy a couch for $600 on installment over the next 6 months. I can't make it give me more than 30 days of data in the past, so I can't see how our investment accounts are pretending to be on a roller coaster. I send that money back to my UK bank account, and record it in the flights  category, not as TBB. I realise YNAB isn't a commercial accounting system, it's personal finance system, but it is a mature product, and they could maintain a feature set that allows some flexibility thereby pleasing more of their customers. These helpful steps will walk you through setting up your budget template. It isn't ok to take more money out of an envelope that it contains in total: that is creating debt. WordTenor Thanks for that - it's a workaround for sure. (If you budget for this month, you'll be able to advance to next month. :). Doing so eliminates the above mentioned issues (and why it's the #1 recommended approach). You don't have to manage it. None of these taste as good as the old formula Coke Zero or Caffeine-Free Coke Zero. Agent99 Totally agree. To be clear, the mindset is that you are not paying for the Home Furnishing on installment -- you are paying for debt on installment. Now, as next month approaches, you're ready to create a new budget. I told you that YNAB saves a copy of your old budget! ): Enter a name for your new budget and click “Continue,” and you’ll be whisked away to your brand-new budget. Faness Hi there. :-). Since it wants me to budget for expenses on a monthly basis, it won’t let me carry expenses forward. You get paid, and distribute that throughout the budget, including $100 in the CC Payment category. That is literal fact. I buy Squirt mix-ins (for regular water bottles) on Amazon and use two per liter pre-disolved in 1/4 cup of warm water. adriana01 of course all personal choice, but no regrets here at giving up soda. That's it, you've given every … About the negative numbers, I said it is fine to have negative in the Budgeted column. I'm still not understanding why it wouldn't appear as funded/green. When they repay me I record that income as ‘work to be repaid ‘, not as TBB. Now, if you decide to repurpose money out of this category into another category, your Budgeted number will turn negative. Or let’s say I prefer to change the budget group currently titled “HOUSING” to “YO MOMMA’S HOUSE.” Easy peasy. Sometimes, you've budgeted for an upcoming expense and need to carry that balance forward to next month. The presence of icons indicates you use goals which I don't so I can't give any guidance. There's nothing wrong with beginning again. Obviously, for some envelopes like "rent", each month you will be using the money you put in during the same month. In YNAB, it means Available is much more important than Budgeted. The carry over should be funds in your bank account to help thru the first weeks of your new year, especially if your year runs Jan to Dec as Jan income is often one of your lowest months. In fact, it often means more success in the long run. Any ideas? So you move all the money out of that category to other categories. If you budget for next month, you'll be able to advance to the following month. “Turning the arrow to the right” is a risky way to handle over spending. As a result, I have in past months attempted to estimate the amounts needed in each category for those few days at the end of the month after I get paid and then budget the rest into the next month, but this split budgeting requires extra effort that is inevitably inaccurate. As for the whole ‘easy to forget’ thing. In July I put $100 in it, then spent $50 from that envelope. Most of us just included amount or date reminders in the category names. (This will have a negative balance.) Perhaps, I just need to get over it, but I'd like to find an effective way to budget my money by pay cycle that doesn't make me feel anxious in the process. I just did this with gas I bought on Feb. 27. dakinemaui yes, but YNAB wants you to distribute the capital as you go along, every month, in and out of every category, which is tiresome. I realise that YNAB works to match a certain, specific way of doing things, and there is a bit of a cult around this, but I like software to be flexible and provide features I can tailor to my liking. Split 3 is necessary because you didn't really get any new money, and therefore must cancel Split 2. Sometimes people want those balances in YNAB rather than looking at their statement (or there is no statement, as is the case with reimbursements), which is exactly what a Tracking account does -- it simply provides a balance within YNAB. You would take all your money in cash and then envelopes. There’s nothing complicated about it. so _every_ category in YNAB acts like a fund in EveryDollar. I'm paid once a month at the end of the month, so I used my July paycheque to fully fund all my August categories, so I have no orange. In March's budget, I budgeted less in gas so that I would have money to fill up the other category. If any transaction in that category was on a credit card, even if it wasn’t the transaction that caused the category to be overspent, YNAB converted the whole overspend into credit card debt when the month rolled over. There just isn’t any difficulty about it. What happens if we increase our retirement savings a percentage. I'm having the same issue. You could carry over money within categories instead of moving all excess to the buffer, but the problem then is you lose track of what you actually need to budget each month per category because you might end up carrying money over for months. Actually pretty offensive given the connotations post tracking account to keep the total hard towards. On installment over the number and names of categories, just as you ’ re stepping the... New credit account up money to fill up the other category and when you can rebuild your emergency fund the... This concept of giving every dollar a job ( i.e over ” spending the bank then make enough... 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