S/O: YNAB, how do YOU use it?

[TexasProud]

Don't know what I was doing, but the 1 for the hundred thousand place just disappeared every time I tried to enter it...  But I realized that since we had already paid, it shouldn't have that much in it anyway.

Ok, I am so confused.  I am putting in the budget.  But like right now it says I need 992 more dollars to fund auto insurance.  I click on that, and I can't figure out how to see the transactions. I put in the monthly amount, that it would be if you took it out evenly.  But we pay our car insurance twice a year, so I am paying  6 months at a time.  How do I fix it?

And like it shows over 2000 dollars in groceries and I have no clue where it thinks that money was spent.  I spent more like 500, so it is categorizing something wrong.  But I have no clue how to fix what it put in there...

Edited January 1 by TexasProud

[73349]

You might want to look on YouTube for a video about targets in YNAB to help you have the amount you need for insurance at the right time.

If you paid for things with debit (or check), look under Checking and see your transaction history to find what was categorized as groceries.

[historically accurate]

18 minutes ago, TexasProud said:

Don't know what I was doing, but the 1 for the hundred thousand place just disappeared every time I tried to enter it...  But I realized that since we had already paid, it shouldn't have that much in it anyway.

Ok, I am so confused.  I am putting in the budget.  But like right now it says I need 992 more dollars to fund auto insurance.  I click on that, and I can't figure out how to see the transactions. I put in the monthly amount, that it would be if you took it out evenly.  But we pay our car insurance twice a year, so I am paying  6 months at a time.  How do I fix it?

And like it shows over 2000 dollars in groceries and I have no clue where it thinks that money was spent.  I spent more like 500, so it is categorizing something wrong.  But I have no clue how to fix what it put in there...

Funding non-monthly bills:

Targets are what you're looking for here. For auto insurance, I put in a "Needed For Spending" target on the last day of the month prior to the insurance being due (ours is due April 4, so my target is March 31), and repeat every sixth month. Targets are found on the right hand side of the page (on the web version) when you put a checkmark on the category. I had to play with the various types (I think there are 4 iirc) to get what I needed, but once it's set, I don't change them.

 

Money spent:

If you're on the web version (which I personally find much easier), you can click on the activity within the category. That should bring up a little box with all of the transactions against that category. So if it's showing that you spent $2000 in groceries, click on that $2000. The little box will have all of the transactions that make up that $2000. If you then click on the transaction that is wrong, it will take you to the transaction in whatever account so you can adjust it from there. Alternatively, you can search for grocery transactions within your accounts to find the error. 

 

[Ginevra]

24 minutes ago, TexasProud said:

Don't know what I was doing, but the 1 for the hundred thousand place just disappeared every time I tried to enter it...  But I realized that since we had already paid, it shouldn't have that much in it anyway.

Ok, I am so confused.  I am putting in the budget.  But like right now it says I need 992 more dollars to fund auto insurance.  I click on that, and I can't figure out how to see the transactions. I put in the monthly amount, that it would be if you took it out evenly.  But we pay our car insurance twice a year, so I am paying  6 months at a time.  How do I fix it?

And like it shows over 2000 dollars in groceries and I have no clue where it thinks that money was spent.  I spent more like 500, so it is categorizing something wrong.  But I have no clue how to fix what it put in there...

For the first issue, you need to understand Targets. In the Right side when you click on a new category, it has a “Create Target for Auto Insurance.” You fill out what the total car insurance will be for the first half of the year, then click “Custom”, then choose the date for the first payment, say, June 1. Then choose okay or whatever sets the target. YNAB will ‘know’ you need to put aside such-and-such amount of money each month so you have all the payment when June rolls around. 
 

For the groceries, when you say “it shows over 2,000 in groceries,” where do you mean? Is it 2,000 in your “available” column on the right? Or in the “activity” column? If it is in the activity column, you need to click on the account on the left (probably your credit card, given what you said) and see which things were assigned to “groceries”. 
 

Did you manually enter December? 

[Slache]

It is such a pain to set up and learn, but has been so worth it for us. 

[TexasProud]

Ok, I cannot do what half of you say.  And I am so confused because I put in my budget yesterday, but now all of the screens have 0 for assigned.  So do I have to enter the amount for every single category every single month?????? Here is my screen:

 

Edited January 1 by TexasProud

[Ginevra]

The budget you worked on was for Dec; now you are in Jan. You go through and re-allot things to your categories when a new month begins. 
 

There is a Nick True YT video for “end of the month tasks” too. 

[historically accurate]

36 minutes ago, TexasProud said:

Ok, I cannot do what half of you say.  And I am so confused because I put in my budget, but now all of the screens have 0 for assigned.  So do I have to enter the amount for every single category every single month?????? Here is my screen:

 

It looks like you assigned in December, so yes, you will need to assign in January as well if you have monthly bills you'll need to hit in Jan and then Feb. (IE: you'll spend that $700 for groceries in January, and need another $700 in February). I'd focus on getting your Targets set up correctly.

Once you have targets set as your monthly budget (so $700 groceries monthly, $300 gas, etc), you can simply hit "Underfunded" in the Auto Assign (over there on the right hand side) and YNAB will automatically fill your buckets. Then, anything left over can go in future months or you can manually assign it to where you are focusing your budget. 

 

Here is the top of my YNAB - if I had $4225.26 or more in Ready to Assign right now, I could simply hit "Underfunded" on the right hand side, and everything would be funded for the whole month of January. That "underfunded" amount is the total of all of my unfunded targets with a January date - ($860 rent + $55.85 life insurance + $104 cricket...). 

 

Looking at yours, if you were to hit "Underfunded" (hidden in the drop down of Auto-Assign), there would then be $992 to auto insurance, $2100 to groceries, and $900 to gas added to Available in those categories from the $46,446.63 showing at the top as Unassigned.

 

So, yes, you do have to assign money monthly, but once you set your targets to your budget, it can be as easy as a button-click. It makes sense to do it monthly, because you'll have to replenish the money for groceries for next month, for example.

YNAB is not set up as just a budgeting app - where you set your limit and then spend. It is set up where you actually choose what you are going to do with only the money in your account. I explained it to my DD's as if you withdrew all of the money in your various accounts and threw it on the dining room table. Then you started saying, "Oh, this $1000 is this month's rent money" (assign it there or in the metaphor, gather it into a pile on the countertop), and "I need to go to the doctor this week - I'll need this $50 for that." (assign it to medical), and continue until you run out of cash. When you think "Oh, yeah, I have a date this Saturday, and I wanted some new lipstick and shoes. I'll need $100 for those purchases, and ugh, I don't get paid until next Friday! Where can I take that $100 from??" since you no longer have any cash on the table (or in Ready to Assign). 

Note that the money is in the Available column (in the metaphor above, it's still on the counter with it's little "Rent" sign). But every month, the Assigned will zero out so you can choose to fund more in January if needed.

 

Edited January 1 by historically accurate

[TexasProud]

Just now, historically accurate said:

It looks like you assigned in December, so yes, you will need to assign in January as well if you have monthly bills you'll need to hit in Jan and then Feb. (IE: you'll spend that $700 for groceries in January, and need another $700 in February). I'd focus on getting your Targets set up correctly.

Once you have targets set as your monthly budget (so $700 groceries monthly, $300 gas, etc), you can simply hit "Underfunded" in the Auto Assign (over there on the right hand side) and YNAB will automatically fill your buckets. Then, anything left over can go in future months or you can manually assign it to where you are focusing your budget. 

 

Here is the top of my YNAB - if I had $4225.26 or more available right now, I could simply hit "Underfunded" on the right hand side, and everything would be funded for the whole month of January. That "underfunded" amount is the total of all of my unfunded targets with a January date - ($860 rent + $55.85 life insurance + $104 cricket...). 

 

Looking at yours, if you were to hit "Underfunded" (hidden in the drop down of Auto-Assign), there would then be $992 to auto insurance, $2100 to groceries, and $900 to gas added to Available in those categories from the $46,446.63 showing at the top as Unassigned.

 

So, yes, you do have to assign money monthly, but once you set your targets to your budget, it can be as easy as a button-click. It makes sense to do it monthly, because you'll have to replenish the money for groceries for next month, for example.

 

YNAB is not set up as just a budgeting app - where you set your limit and then spend. It is set up where you actually choose what you are going to do with only the money in your account. I explained it to my DD's as if you withdrew all of the money in your various accounts and threw it on the dining room table. Then you started saying, "Oh, this $1000 is this month's rent money" (assign it there or in the metaphor, gather it into a pile on the countertop), and "I need to go to the doctor this week - I'll need this $50 for that." (assign it to medical), and continue until you run out of cash. When you think "Oh, yeah, I have a date this Saturday, and I wanted some new lipstick and shoes. I'll need $100 for those purchases, and ugh, I don't get paid until next Friday! Where can I take that $100 from??" since you no longer have any cash on the table (or in Ready to Assign). 

But I didn't spend 2100 on groceries and when I click on that, nothing clicks.  I have no idea where that comes from.

Ok, honestly, I don't need what you described in the last paragraph.   We typically spend 3600 a month on discretionary spending like groceries, bills, gifts, and such. We have no car payments, mortgage or anything else. We average 2700  a month on various insurances (health, house, etc.).  Together that is about half of our first source of monthly income. The rest of the categories for that first source are put into savings or given away.  

[ScoutTN]

I like Dave Ramsey’s expression, “Give every dollar a name.” All the money gets assigned to a job each month. All months will not be exactly the same. 

[historically accurate]

25 minutes ago, TexasProud said:

But I didn't spend 2100 on groceries and when I click on that, nothing clicks.  I have no idea where that comes from.

Ok, honestly, I don't need what you described in the last paragraph.   We typically spend 3600 a month on discretionary spending like groceries, bills, gifts, and such. We have no car payments, mortgage or anything else. We average 2700  a month on various insurances (health, house, etc.).  Together that is about half of our first source of monthly income. The rest of the categories for that first source are put into savings or given away.  

That $2100 is not spent - that is set as a target. If you had spent $2100, $2100 would show in the Activity column. (see below for explanations on the columns).

Here is my target for Rent: I have it set as a Savings Builder, which means YNAB tells me to put in $860 every month no matter how much is available or how much I spent on it last month. 

To correct your $2100 grocery target, click on the box next to it (the blue check mark) and adjust your right-hand side with the blue Edit button. Targets are what you think of when you think "Budget" - they're the amount you want to spend on the line item or save monthly. They show over on the left hand side in short-hand "$860.00 more needed this month" or "Funded" an in detail on the right hand side when you highlight the category. 

As for whether or not you need it, that's for you to decide, but it will track your spending as well as show you what you have available (to give or save).

The three columns in the middle of the screen show Assigned (the money you allocated to the category this month), Activity (the money you spent in the category this month), and Available (the amount you have currently sitting in that pile on the countertop). I also spend a lot of my time in the Income vs. Expense Report, where I can compare monthly spending in the accounts (so I can see different month's "Activity" columns at one time). 

Have you read/watched the starter guide? https://www.ynab.com/guide/the-ultimate-get-started-guide It may answer some of your questions as well. 

Edit: I just found this transitioning from Mint guide - hope it helps you! https://support.ynab.com/transitioning-from-mint-HJJSQvW7a

Edited January 1 by historically accurate

[historically accurate]

I have a question for all you YNAB users. I have 3 credit cards that are used throughout the month. I pay them all in full, but how can I see that the payment has been scheduled from the budget page. I can enter the transactions in the checking account with the pay date, but when I look at the budget page, there is no notification that I have the payment scheduled. I'm kind of scared I'm going to mess up and schedule the payment to come out 2x, so I'd like a little note on the budget page as "Available" but already spoken for kind of thing...

[scholastica]

42 minutes ago, historically accurate said:

I have a question for all you YNAB users. I have 3 credit cards that are used throughout the month. I pay them all in full, but how can I see that the payment has been scheduled from the budget page. I can enter the transactions in the checking account with the pay date, but when I look at the budget page, there is no notification that I have the payment scheduled. I'm kind of scared I'm going to mess up and schedule the payment to come out 2x, so I'd like a little note on the budget page as "Available" but already spoken for kind of thing...

Are you setting them up as accounts or budget items?

[historically accurate]

4 minutes ago, scholastica said:

Are you setting them up as accounts or budget items?

They're accounts. They show up as line items in the budget, but I just leave them alone until I pay them since YNAB moves the money to them throughout the month.

I don't like automatic debit since I have anxiety that I will not have the money in the account when it comes time to pay it.

[scholastica]

So you don’t have them set up as accounts off to the left, like where your checking account is? You have them as budget items only? 

[historically accurate]

12 minutes ago, scholastica said:

So you don’t have them set up as accounts off to the left, like where your checking account is? You have them as budget items only? 

Yes, they are accounts off to the left. And I can see the pending payment when I click into that account, but it doesn't show anywhere on the "Budget" page - it shows the amount I have available.

Is there a way for it to say I have $2000 available, but $1000 is scheduled to come out on the 2nd without clicking into the account?

[matrips]

3 hours ago, TexasProud said:

Ok, I cannot do what half of you say.  And I am so confused because I put in my budget yesterday, but now all of the screens have 0 for assigned.  So do I have to enter the amount for every single category every single month?????? Here is my screen:

 

Yes, you typically assign money to your categories each month. If the green amount is already enough to cover this months bills (since you did assigning yesterday), then just wait until Feb 1.  
I assign money throughout the month, after paychecks come in. Next to phone for example , I may have Phone bill -4th, to show me it’s due on the 4th of the month. I would find that category before something due on the 25th.

Your groceries issue looks due to a goal you set. You have not spent $2000 and you are not in red. It appears your ‘goal’ was $2800 for groceries for a month, so it is saying you still need to fund $2100. Just change your goal to $700 if that’s the correct amount instead.

[scholastica]

9 minutes ago, historically accurate said:

Yes, they are accounts off to the left. And I can see the pending payment when I click into that account, but it doesn't show anywhere on the "Budget" page - it shows the amount I have available.

Is there a way for it to say I have $2000 available, but $1000 is scheduled to come out on the 2nd without clicking into the account?

I don’t think so. As long as the balance on the account matches the balance on the budget item at the top, I feel confident that the money is there. We always check that those numbers match whenever we update YNAB. 

[Heartstrings]

9 hours ago, TexasProud said:

And like it shows over 2000 dollars in groceries and I have no clue where it thinks that money was spent.  I spent more like 500, so it is categorizing something wrong.  But I have no clue how to fix what it put in there...

On my phone I click the category, then the details button then activity to get a list of transactions. It’s probably similar on the desk top.  

Going forward you’ll have a chance to look at each transaction and either approve or change the category it is guessing you want that transaction to go into.  For me transactions from WalMart, Amazon and gas stations need attention the most, because we buy across several categories from those places.  Is Walmart a grocery order, clothes, or Christmas shopping?  Is that gas station transaction gas or from buying a soda and gum after using the restroom.   Most things are straight forward, my electric company is the electric bill every time for example.  

[Heartstrings]

8 hours ago, TexasProud said:

k, I cannot do what half of you say.  And I am so confused because I put in my budget yesterday, but now all of the screens have 0 for assigned.  So do I have to enter the amount for every single category every single month?????? Here is my screen:

 

Everyone else covered how to use “targets” in YNAB to make it easier, but I don’t use those.  What I do is use the name of the category to tell me the amount to add each month, then I manually fund those every paycheck.  We get paid monthly so its easier for me that way.  

So my grocery category isn’t named Grocery.  It’s named Grocery $1500 so I know to add $1500 each month. My sinking fund is named Sinking Fund $700.   The paycheck goes into the “To Be Assigned” then I move money to the right category after pay day.  It only takes a few minutes.  Then I can determine the variable stuff like putting aside extra for recital outfits or birthday gifts or whatever with what left in “To Be Assigned”.   

Edited January 1 by Heartstrings

[scholastica]

22 minutes ago, Heartstrings said:

Everyone else covered how to use “targets” in YNAB to make it easier, but I don’t use those.  What I do is use the name of the category to tell me the amount to add each month, then I manually fund those every paycheck.  We get paid monthly so its easier for me that way.  

So my grocery category isn’t named Grocery.  It’s named Grocery $1500 so I know to add $1500 each month. My sinking fund is named Sinking Fund $700.   The paycheck goes into the “To Be Assigned” then I move money to the right category after pay day.  It only takes a few minutes.  Then I can determine the variable stuff like putting aside extra for recital outfits or birthday gifts or whatever with what left in “To Be Assigned”.   

We do the same. Paycheck goes into ready to assign and we distribute. We do the same with dollar amounts in the category name. Paycheck comes twice a month and some things we allocate from one and some from the other, and that is in the name too. 

[73349]

Oh... so here is where we should mention that setting up a budget before the new month starts can lead to confusion. You set up your budget each month on the first. (On the Budget Nerds podcast, YNAB employee Ben teases his co-worker Ernie about sitting in a nice bubble bath and basking in the joy of assigning dollars on the first of each month.)

If you like, set up a Hold for Next Month category, especially if the first is not a payday in your household, and move the dollars to Ready to Assign when the new month starts. (It's possible to scroll right and budget future months, but it's also possible to make a mess of it if you want to spend any of those dollars sooner than the month you assigned them to. I did that.)

[TexasProud]

2 hours ago, Heartstrings said:

On my phone I click the category, then the details button then activity to get a list of transactions. It’s probably similar on the desk top.  

Going forward you’ll have a chance to look at each transaction and either approve or change the category it is guessing you want that transaction to go into.  For me transactions from WalMart, Amazon and gas stations need attention the most, because we buy across several categories from those places.  Is Walmart a grocery order, clothes, or Christmas shopping?  Is that gas station transaction gas or from buying a soda and gum after using the restroom.   Most things are straight forward, my electric company is the electric bill every time for example.  

Ok, it looks like I put 700 a week instead of a month.  And the truth is that there are NO transactions since it didn't download any.  It just has the lump debt on the credit card or lump sum in the checking account.  We haven't spent any money on groceries since I created it.  It is green now...  I am not sure why changing it made it go from yellow to green since the money was in the accounts to cover it whether it was 700 or 2100.   I will need to have some expenditures, which I don't have yet or rather they haven't posted yet. I know my husband has made some Amazon purchases that are showing pending in Monarch, but are not showing in YNAB yet. 

[matrips]

2 hours ago, TexasProud said:

Ok, it looks like I put 700 a week instead of a month.  And the truth is that there are NO transactions since it didn't download any.  It just has the lump debt on the credit card or lump sum in the checking account.  We haven't spent any money on groceries since I created it.  It is green now...  I am not sure why changing it made it go from yellow to green since the money was in the accounts to cover it whether it was 700 or 2100.   I will need to have some expenditures, which I don't have yet or rather they haven't posted yet. I know my husband has made some Amazon purchases that are showing pending in Monarch, but are not showing in YNAB yet. 

You had the money in Ready to Assign, but you didn’t have $2800 assigned to groceries (your original target), so that’s why yellow. The red/green/yellow tells whether you’ve assigned the targeted amount or not (if you have a target) to the category. It doesn’t look at what you have in Ready to Assign. It turned to green once you changed the grocery target to $700 and you had at least $700 assigned to it.

[matrips]

Transaction downloads are bank dependent. Banks/Ccs provide the schedule to ynab. One of my banks/Cc doesn’t seem to provide new downloads to ynab over weekends/holidays.

[Heartstrings]

43 minutes ago, matrips said:

Transaction downloads are bank dependent. Banks/Ccs provide the schedule to ynab. One of my banks/Cc doesn’t seem to provide new downloads to ynab over weekends/holidays.

Mine too.   On Tuesdays I usually get transactions from the weekend.  I’ll get transactions from this holiday weekend on Wed probably.   

[TexasProud]

Ok, so have Targets set up. But another question...

So in March, I will have a massive bill for my husband's whole life and our long-term care policies.  I assigned money in the savings account that I had already saved and called it life insurance.  Then I have a target/budget category  I called  NML where I save the amount per month that I need.  So when that massive bill comes, how will I do that?  The amount in that target category will cover the long term care premiums, but the life insurance will need to come out of that savings account.  I am pretty sure that for that life insurance, when I categorize it life insurance it will take it out of that account.  But the issue is that the money needs to come out of the checking account, so i need to transfer it from the savings account to the checking account to pay for it...

The way I do it now, each quarter I transfer all of the money to savings from the checking to the savings.... (Sort of....  really, so much of it was going back and forth that many times it was really just in my ledger and nothing got transferred at all because I needed to transfer 2400 to the mission savings but needed to transfer 2500 to checking account from savings for a long term care payment, so really I just transferred 100 from savings to checking for the quarter.  ( We have 10 or more savings categories each month.)

Right now one "paycheck" goes into our regular checking account and pretty much all of the expenses come out of that account.  Another "paycheck" gets put into a different savings account.  That is the money that gets transferred to the money market/CD savings account and sometimes gets transferred to the other checking account like when we make a large purchase or something. But we live pretty much on that one "paycheck" in our regular checking account. 

So it feels like I have chances to get overdrawn in my account because YNAB just treats it like a giant pot of money.  But I don't want to keep our savings accounts in our checking account that earns no interest as opposed to the over 5 percent we are earning on the money now ( It has our short-term, long term and emergency savings in it.)

Edited January 2 by TexasProud

[carriede]

1 hour ago, TexasProud said:

o it feels like I have chances to get overdrawn in my account because YNAB just treats it like a giant pot of money.  But I don't want to keep our savings accounts in our checking account that earns no interest as opposed to the over 5 percent we are earning on the money now ( It has our short-term, long term and emergency savings in it.)

One way to deal with this is to create Category Groups based on where the money "lives".

I would make a Category Group called "Savings" that had your 10 savings categories within it. One of those is "life insurance". The money will live there most of the year, and you will assign money from your savings paycheck's to this Category Group only*. When you need to pay the bill, transfer that money from savings to checking IRL. In YNAB, you'll redistribute (zero out, it will cause that category to turn yellow*) that transfer amount from your savings "life insurance" category into another category that is under one of your checking account categories (perhaps one named "paid with savings" or "pay life insurance".

I hope that helps!

*Another advantage to doing this is you can match the Available amount in the YNAB Category Group with your actual savings account, and they should be the same.

*Yellow categories in YNAB act as a warning. It means "look at me, something may be wrong". It can happen if you don't assign enough to meet your Target, or if you overspend that category using a credit card. If it makes sense for what you're doing that month, it's okay to leave categories yellow.

Edited January 2 by carriede
typos

[Heartstrings]

26 minutes ago, carriede said:

One way to deal with this is to create Category Groups based on where the money "lives".

I would make a Category Group called "Savings" that had your 10 savings categories within it. One of those is "life insurance". The money will live there most of the year, and you will assign money from your savings paycheck's to this Category Group only*. When you need to pay the bill, transfer that money from savings to checking IRL. In YNAB, you'll redistribute (zero out, it will cause that category to turn yellow*) that transfer amount from your savings "life insurance" category into another category that is under one of your checking account categories (perhaps one named "paid with savings" or "pay life insurance".

I hope that helps!

*Another advantage to doing this is you can match the Available amount in the YNAB Category Group with your actual savings account, and they should be the same.

*Yellow categories in YNAB act as a warning. It means "look at me, something may be wrong". It can happen if you don't assign enough to meet your Target, or if you overspend that category using a credit card. If it makes sense for what you're doing that month, it's okay to leave categories yellow.

I second this, it’s how I would do it.  The category group for account bills get paid from would have a category labeled Insurance, then I’d have a category group called Savings at Xyz Bank with a category named savings for Insurance.  Then when I made that transfer in real life I would mirror it in YNAB.
 

 The bill transaction category would be at 0 most of the year, with no target set.  Prior to the due date I would withdraw that amount from the savings, zeroing out that category  in YNAB and starting that target over.  When I deposited that money in the checking I would allocate it to the proper category, then zero that out when the bill got paid.  
 

[Heartstrings]

1 hour ago, TexasProud said:

So it feels like I have chances to get overdrawn in my account because YNAB just treats it like a giant pot of money. 

You just need to tell YNAB that it’s separate pots through your use of categories groups.  You can change and add groups and categories to fit your needs.   Try making each bank account its own category group, then use the categories within the groups to allocate the money.  Just be careful in naming things.  Instead of just insurance have Bills Account>Insurance payment and Saving Account Xyz Bank>savings for insurance.  That seems to mirror how you (correctly) think about them, just set up YNAB to reflect that.  

[cjzimmer1]

On 12/31/2023 at 10:27 AM, Hyacinth said:

Question about sinking funds. If you have a line in your budget for, say, a future car, and you assign $500 to that item, where do you keep those funds? Is it in your checking account and you just know, because of YNAB, that you don’t really have that much to spend in your checking account? Or do you put it somewhere else? (Does that make sense?)

I don't use YNAB but all of the budget programs I have looked at were run similarly so unless YNAB is completely different this thought might still help you.

Your budget doesn't care what account your money is stored in.  If I pull $50 in cash from savings that I will spend on grocery but tag that withdrawal as groceries it will subtract it from my grocery budget. If I write a check for $50 or charge $50 on a credit card.  Anything marked as grocery will affect the remaining balance for groceries and the account I used to actually pay for it is irrelevant. 

I have three accounts I store money in.  Checking, savings, and high yield savings.  The checking account is just the amount I need to have immediate access to until the next source of income is deposited.  The savings account is things I will need soon (next month or so), It earns interest but not much.  The rest of the money is in the high yield savings (it takes a few days to move money from here back to checking so I try to keep an amount of need now in the checking but no extra so that I can earn as much interest as I can).

When I'm considering spending, the account balances and the budget are actually two different things.  The budget tells me how much that I have allocated to something is available.  But the accounts tell me where it is.  If I decide to buy a $5000 thing, first I check the budget that I have $5000 allocated to that category and then I check the checking account (where all my bills are paid from etc) to see if I have $5000 available.  If the budget says I have it, it's just a matter of moving it to the account I use to pay from.  So in all essence all my sinkings funds are stored as one big lump sum.  The budget just tells me how to break it apart if I choose to spend.

[Ginevra]

Hope you don’t mind the thread hijack: question for experienced users: 

Does anyone enter their entire paystub data? Or, does anyone know of a video that shows how to do this? I would like to do this for the year. So I would know what portion went to health insurance, retirement plan, taxes, SS, etc. 

[Heartstrings]

56 minutes ago, Ginevra said:

Hope you don’t mind the thread hijack: question for experienced users: 

Does anyone enter their entire paystub data? Or, does anyone know of a video that shows how to do this? I would like to do this for the year. So I would know what portion went to health insurance, retirement plan, taxes, SS, etc. 

isn’t all of that just on the paystub?  They usually have YTD totals as the year goes on.  
 

I have no idea if YNAB is set up to track that.  I’ve never tried.  I wouldn’t think it was.  

Edited January 6 by Heartstrings

[scholastica]

 

1 hour ago, Ginevra said:

Hope you don’t mind the thread hijack: question for experienced users: 

Does anyone enter their entire paystub data? Or, does anyone know of a video that shows how to do this? I would like to do this for the year. So I would know what portion went to health insurance, retirement plan, taxes, SS, etc. 

I don’t think YNAB can do this since you don’t actually have that money to allocate. It’s already gone and YNAB is tracking what you have available to spend.

[historically accurate]

1 hour ago, Ginevra said:

Hope you don’t mind the thread hijack: question for experienced users: 

Does anyone enter their entire paystub data? Or, does anyone know of a video that shows how to do this? I would like to do this for the year. So I would know what portion went to health insurance, retirement plan, taxes, SS, etc. 

If I wanted to do this, and for me, it would be too much to enter and it wouldn't get done. I don't think there's any easy way to do it, but you could totally manually enter it. 

Here's how I would do it: I would set up categories for each of the "Gross Pay Deductions", so a group with SS, Federal Tax, State Tax, Retirement Plan, etc as categories. When I got paid, I would log an inflow of gross pay amount, and fund the different "Gross Pay Deductions" with the amount withheld from the check, so the amount remaining in RTA would then equal the check amount. Then, I'd log a separate outflow transaction of all of the deductions to  show as expenses spent on the reports. 

My co-worker used to use YNAB a couple of years ago, but she quit because she was entering sales tax as its own line item, splitting Walmart receipts between groceries/toiletries/household goods/etc. After I picked up YNAB in August, she started in September with much broader tracking and far less categories than before. She says it's much better with less splitting of transactions. I go for less info, but the budget actually gets used that way. But that might be my inherent laziness. 

[historically accurate]

I was curious, so I found a Reddit comment that explained how they did it: 

They set up an account (like a bank account) to enter the paycheck into, then the net pay is transferred into checking.

 

 

I do gross paycheck, for a few reasons:

• Medical/dental/401k withdrawals really are just normal transactions, that happen to come out before the paycheck hits my account.

• My insurance costs change year to year, and it would be nice to track my entire medical costs, not just what comes after premiums.

• I can pay at the work cafeteria directly from my upcoming paycheck, so I need someplace where those transactions will go.

• Checking my paystub and manually entering these transactions keeps me on top of my paycheck. If my work messes up, I immediately know.

---

As to how I achieve it, I have an on budget account called Paycheck LZ (Landing Zone). In that account, every paycheck is entered like:

Payee	Category	Outflow	Inflow
Wage	Income		1000
401k	Paycheck Deductions	100
Federal Withholding	Paycheck Taxes	100
...	...	...	...
Transfer: Checking		500

When I finish entering in every transaction, the final balance in that account should come out to $0, indicating I made no typos.

[Heartstrings]

1 hour ago, historically accurate said:

I was curious, so I found a Reddit comment that explained how they did it: 

They set up an account (like a bank account) to enter the paycheck into, then the net pay is transferred into checking.

 

 

I do gross paycheck, for a few reasons:

• Medical/dental/401k withdrawals really are just normal transactions, that happen to come out before the paycheck hits my account.

• My insurance costs change year to year, and it would be nice to track my entire medical costs, not just what comes after premiums.

• I can pay at the work cafeteria directly from my upcoming paycheck, so I need someplace where those transactions will go.

• Checking my paystub and manually entering these transactions keeps me on top of my paycheck. If my work messes up, I immediately know.

---

As to how I achieve it, I have an on budget account called Paycheck LZ (Landing Zone). In that account, every paycheck is entered like:

Payee	Category	Outflow	Inflow
Wage	Income		1000
401k	Paycheck Deductions	100
Federal Withholding	Paycheck Taxes	100
...	...	...	...
Transfer: Checking		500

When I finish entering in every transaction, the final balance in that account should come out to $0, indicating I made no typos.

I say go for it if it makes you happy.  

[Ginevra]

19 minutes ago, Heartstrings said:

I say go for it if it makes you happy.  

I definitely want to try it. Seems like the start of the year is a good time to try it. 🙂 

[ScoutTN]

I set up a new budget, not a fresh start, this week. Linked the accounts. Loving the auto-import of transactions! So much better than manual entry!! Watched a few YNAB videos too. 

[lauraw4321]

9 minutes ago, ScoutTN said:

I set up a new budget, not a fresh start, this week. Linked the accounts. Loving the auto-import of transactions! So much better than manual entry!! Watched a few YNAB videos too. 

Me too me too!  I’m enjoying it so far. 

[73349]

20 hours ago, Ginevra said:

Hope you don’t mind the thread hijack: question for experienced users: 

Does anyone enter their entire paystub data? Or, does anyone know of a video that shows how to do this? I would like to do this for the year. So I would know what portion went to health insurance, retirement plan, taxes, SS, etc. 

Set them up as tracking accounts so they're not counted in your budget.

[Ginevra]

5 minutes ago, 73349 said:

Set them up as tracking accounts so they're not counted in your budget.

Thank you; that may work.

 

I’ve been tweaking a bunch of things as I learn more and more about how to use YNAB best. (Mostly through Nick True’s videos.) I just followed his directions for managing reimbursements, so I could properly record a trip to see a Broadway show with a friend. She Venmo’d me the reimbursement so I was able to do it the way Nick True shows. So thrilling! lol! 
 

I did try to use the “Paycheck Landing Zone” as described above but I don’t think this will work. It’s too much to manually enter 26 times a year for one thing. For two, all of this info exists, including YTD totals, on the paystub itself; why duplicate effort? Lastly, it also just plain did not work because it took up too much space on my screen and the “Save” transaction button was down below and I could not scroll down to push it. So - didn’t work. But that’s okay. Maybe I will revisit the idea for 2025. 

[Arctic Bunny]

So here’s my question (First time, first month with YNAB)…

My budgeting method for food and groceries has been to automatically put the same amount from every paycheque onto the credit card that I use for those purchases. Has worked well for years, although not ideal. Now that DH has started taking over some of these purchases, and has never bothered to activate his card, more things end up coming out of our debit account and I’m left short there and with a surplus on the credit card, which all drives me a little batty.

My budgeting plan is that the surplus builds on the card, then I know how much we can spend on a large Costco shop, for example.

If I’m understanding YNAB correctly, I’ve got my debit account and credit card account. I’ve got fully-funded categories for groceries, gas, eating out, Costco, and the associated credit card payment. So now for this month, when I grocery shop, it will reduce the surplus on the credit card account when that transaction happens, and I will categorize that transaction as groceries.

Then next paycheque, instead of automatically making that pre-payment on my credit card, I will continue to fund the categories with paycheque money. Then when I use the credit card for groceries, it will still show as a transaction with grocery category, but the associated credit card payment category will go negative, showing me the actual amount to pay from the next pay cheque. This will leave the real money in the debit account. Then if I don’t use all the grocery budget in that pay period, I could move it to the Costco category, and it will sit in the debit account instead of letting the credit card company hold it. And if DH buys gas with the debit card, it doesn’t matter.

Yes?

[73349]

@Arctic Bunny It sounds right to me!

You can also ask questions in the YNAB FB groups or ask support directly if you want.

[Bootsie]

It has been so interesting reading all of these posts.  I have never used YNAB,  I consider myself a fairly detail-oriented person and DH and I are both finance professors--so we tend to like budgets and dealing with numbers and I am in awe of how much time and attention many of you pay to your household budget; DH and I would have never been able to keep such detail. 

[Danae]

3 hours ago, Arctic Bunny said:

So here’s my question (First time, first month with YNAB)…

My budgeting method for food and groceries has been to automatically put the same amount from every paycheque onto the credit card that I use for those purchases. Has worked well for years, although not ideal. Now that DH has started taking over some of these purchases, and has never bothered to activate his card, more things end up coming out of our debit account and I’m left short there and with a surplus on the credit card, which all drives me a little batty.

My budgeting plan is that the surplus builds on the card, then I know how much we can spend on a large Costco shop, for example.

If I’m understanding YNAB correctly, I’ve got my debit account and credit card account. I’ve got fully-funded categories for groceries, gas, eating out, Costco, and the associated credit card payment. So now for this month, when I grocery shop, it will reduce the surplus on the credit card account when that transaction happens, and I will categorize that transaction as groceries.

Then next paycheque, instead of automatically making that pre-payment on my credit card, I will continue to fund the categories with paycheque money. Then when I use the credit card for groceries, it will still show as a transaction with grocery category, but the associated credit card payment category will go negative, showing me the actual amount to pay from the next pay cheque. This will leave the real money in the debit account. Then if I don’t use all the grocery budget in that pay period, I could move it to the Costco category, and it will sit in the debit account instead of letting the credit card company hold it. And if DH buys gas with the debit card, it doesn’t matter.

Yes?

Yes.  
 

Although you don’t need to move the money to a Costco category.  If what you buy at Costco is groceries you can just leave it in the grocery category and when the category has a large balance you know you can do your Costco shop.  It gives you the same info that you were getting by letting the balance build on the credit card, but the money can stay in your debit account rather than pre-paying the card and it doesn’t matter which method of payment you use.

[Arctic Bunny]

46 minutes ago, Danae said:

Yes.  
 

Although you don’t need to move the money to a Costco category.  If what you buy at Costco is groceries you can just leave it in the grocery category and when the category has a large balance you know you can do your Costco shop.  It gives you the same info that you were getting by letting the balance build on the credit card, but the money can stay in your debit account rather than pre-paying the card and it doesn’t matter which method of payment you use.

 

 

Thanks! And that’s sort of the heart of the issue….

I thought if I made a separate Costco category, and moved what I don’t spend at the actual grocery store on weekly menu planning, DH could see how much is available/leftover to spend there. Then, we (he) could also see how much we spend there. We’ve been discussing the mindless throwing of things in the cart habit.