I was looking at clothes and found something I liked. My husband asked, are you buying that. I said, "No, I'm out of money in that category, and I don't want to move money from any other category. I have been tracking for years, but YNAB has helped me both to spend more freely and more carefully.
Nice. My wife was looking at some clothes the other day and found something she liked. I asked _"Are you buying that??"_ She said _"F- yeah, I'm buying that! Try and stop me with your budget, accounting boy! I'm 40 pounds heavier than you, let's roll!!!"_ ( oДo) I chickened out (" -.-)
Just deleted my “Stuff I forgot about“ category because of this episode to further more commit to making a choice while allocating money. Great episode guys, thanks!
I've used YNAB to track for the first 5 years of using it and was motivated purely by the data. Progress was there because I was aware of my personal finances, but the progress was minimal. Once I actually started applying the YNAB principals, the progress was on a whole new level. All of a sudden it clicked and I actually feel in control of my finances now.
"the progress was minimal" - this is exactly my experience with my spreadsheet! In fact, I don't even know if there was progress. We were either spending more than we make or maintaining the status quo. ~Ernie
**YNAB WIN** We live in the UK, and this past week, my daughter had to be rushed to a specialist hospital in London, which is far from where we live. I stayed in the hospital with her, and we were there for an entire week before she was finally allowed home yesterday. My husband and I have only been doing YNAB for a couple of months now. My win is that because I was unable to work the entire week (I dont get paid/benefits if Im not at work) but YNAB had allowed me to build what I called a “loss of income” fund, (what you guys refer to as an “emergency fund”) I had only built 2 months at this point, but I know this month now, because of having that fund available, I can “roll with the punches” and I will have the funds available to be able to pay my bills. Thankyou so much from us, a family of fans from the UK!
I think embracing the scarcity gets easier when you can make a choice. When it actually feels like a choice, instead of feeling like not having enough. That happened for me in the past few weeks when I had saved a few hundred dollars in true expense categories vs not having any money allocated in my true expense categories.
So needed this today. I am about 2 months in and sometimes, I'm seriously like, what am I doing? LOL YNAB Win: One month into YNAB I was already 42 days in my Age of Money. Two months in I'm 56 days in my Age of Money. It's so SOO cool. Never had this insight in my spreadsheet. Not like YNAB gives me.
>One month into YNAB I was already 42 days in my Age of Money I don't think that's mathematically possible! But maybe you were adding some backdated transactions. Congratz!
@@fsmoura I thought it was wrong at first too. I looked back and I was on for a partial month and started the following month with 11 days. I'm at 55 days now 2 months in. I do have all of my savings in there, but am an actual month ahead.
I’ve used the software for tracking and it does an amazing job at it. My biggest challenge is getting my spouse to get on board with money to start YNABing. Only when all parties agree is when changes will start to show. All the best to you fellow YNABers!
My advice would be to try and make your money meetings fun (as possible)! Involve your significant other with goals and start funding them. It's pretty satisfying buying 'wants' that have been saved up for. Also satisfying when an appliance breaks, but you have a category that you have been slowly putting money into for months/years that more than offsets the cost of a replacement.
I have the same issue getting my spouse on board. But I think it will be easier later once I'm able to provide the evidence that it is helping by being able to make those purchases in cash after saving for them.
At first, I was budgeting, but I got comfortable moving money around and started tracking. It pushed me back a little, and I was confused about what was going on, but I’m back to budgeting again.
I have had YNAB for just over 2 weeks. I worked to get control over what I needed to spend absolutely as a priority for my must pay bills. When it came to splitting the rest of the money for my daily/fun money spending I was completely lost, looking at 1 week of dining out, and spending money on things I wanted and I ran low on money that I could spend freely but still had enough to cover for all my needs. Figuring out those more loose spending categories was challenging but I have been able to support myself and get a handle on where my money was going while establishing healthy spending limits on my non essential spending. Allocating money is amazing.
Also, as you do it for longer those fun categories might have a chance to beef up a bit, and then it feels less like a squeeze. That's been my experience. 😊
I think it took me two, maybe, 3 months and a few budget resets to really get YNAB working. Once I did I really felt the power of YNAB. Funny enough I didn't know there were rules. I think I just generally understood the concept of the envelope method supercharged by technology and that really is all you need to YNAB at the start. Now I watch a podcast on budgeting. So I'm all in and I suggest it to everyone.
A lot of us needed this . I use YNAB daily and I am into my third year . ( UK) It has turned my spending around. Lots of good points made about tracking as opposed to YNABing plus maybe I do too much of rolling with the punches as it takes time to modify spending habits .
I use a hybrid system. I can't structure fun money, it takes the fun out of it, but I want charts later. So my discretionary spending goes into a discretionary spending bucket. I put transactions into specific tracking categories which immediately go to overspent and are then covered with the discretionary bucket funds. I buy coffee, I put that purchase into the coffee category (which was assigned $0 so it's negative now), and then I cover the overspend from the big discretionary budget to take it back to $0. I can see how much is in the master discretionary bucket so I know the global limit for discretionary spends.
Yes, I do the same! I wish there was a subcategory purely for tracking e.g. under a "takeout" category, you could have "coffee", "lazy dinner" subcategories which you don't assign money to directly. Instead, when you categorise a purchase as "coffee", it takes money out of "takeout", but it appears as an extra level of detail in reports. This would allow us to make decisions like, "huh half of this money is going to coffee, do i need to cut back specifically on coffee? should I create and fund a separate category just for coffee?" Or with a "subscriptions" category, you can mark purchases as "netflix", "amazon prime" subcategories, etc. so that it appears separately in reports, but you're still just funding one "subscriptions" category. Maybe subcategory isn't the best name as you're not assigning money to it but I can't come up with better ideas (tags?)
I don't think this is considered not YNABing. It's just a slush fund concept. You don't have to have granular categories and assignments to not be tracking.
If you put the money into the specific category _before_ spending, you're YNABing, if you spend and hope to be able to cover with money from another category, you're skating on thin ice.
@@fsmoura Yes but he just is using a slush fund for fun money. I think he's still YNABing. I do the same thing. I have a slush fund of money for the month and then once I spend it I assign to the specific category. I never go over my slush fund amount.
Before ynab tracking was my issue. I was forecasting how my money should be spent but not tracking where it actually went. that's why i started ynab and now i love the method.
I just hope that when Ernie finally watches "The Notebook" he remembers to mention it in a video. (He doesn't even have to tell us about how much he cried and loved it! 😆)
YNABing is about being intentional with your money, not reactionary. You are tracking with intention and a plan. Your budget will evolve over time as you use the software and YNAB. Its so empowering and a game changer.
As I was watching this absolute gem of a video I received an email from YNAB telling me that they have yet again increased their annual rate by 10%... Looks like I'll have to check in my budget what I'm letting go this time in order to pay for being able to see what I'm letting go off...😂
I haven't been properly budgeting for 2 years. I had to leave the country at some point and never lived in one place for more than a year. It's kind of hard to budget when you're not aware of the living costs in a new place. YNAB however helped me with tracking our family's finances in several currencies and in several countries.
Gosh, it really does hit you in the face. Right now my feeling is that I would have to be making x2 or x3 what I'm making, which sucks, to achieve my financial goals / "afford" what I want to afford. But it's true that there's not any other way. "I don't really know of any other way to really discover what you want out of life than actually allocating money" really hit home. DAMN IT YNAB hahaha. Like, I've never felt more poor than right now and more further away from my goals, but I guess at least I'm facing it eye to eye? Aaaaaanyways. Got myself into some CC debt this past month and it seems it'll have to happen again but... It's all damn hard because I have a loan I'm still paying from an old business. But oh well. Little by little. Also will try to earn more money other ways, fingers crossed. Anyways. Thanks for these videos. They *are* thought provoking, which is good.
Kind of an aside tracking over a long time is valuable to me. When I can’t remember a time something happened I follow the money particularly if I’m good to fill in the memo field. Then I can search and bail out my old man memory
Part of it feels like it’s learning hurdles. Tracking expenses AND zero based budgeting for some can be a very daunting task. I have friends who have tried YNAB and get hung up on balances not matching up.
I agree. Learning anything new can be a daunting task. I think the key is letting go of perfection and celebrating the small wins along the way. Then, years down the road, we can look back and laugh at how far we've come 😊 ~Ernie
Is there a YNAB report that shows me the categories month over month that I've overspent into and had to 'roll with the punches' and allocate more? I'm looking to identify common areas where I'm overspending and need to behave/have more discipline?
There isn't a report to see where you've been overspending. If you use Targets, you could compare your Average Spend in a category to the Target amount to gain some overspending insights. ~Ernie
I've been using YNAB since January 2024 and now it's almost July 1st so tonight I did an audit of where the heck is all my money going and I have found the source of the problem... me. So I made some budget goals for July and wanted to make a note in YNAB so I remember how much I wanted to spend in each area (wait for it...) So I was going to come onto TH-cam and find a random YNAB video and pose the question.. how do I make a note in YNAB to remember my plan for next month. This is the video I click on and not 5 minutes into it, DUH! I'm expense tracking, not ynabing! Thank you for the very timely video, I have allocated my funds for next month, based only on what's available in my account today. I think I may be on to something here .. thank you!
@@tubeMonger Its not too complicated. You can track if you want but if you want ultimate power over your money you should use the software to its fullest potential.
(Re posting my main point that I put in a thread:) As Mint was dying, I definitely got into the habit of just expense tracking. Meaning I basically spent what "felt" right, and then did an accounting session at the end of the month to see how on track my feelings were 😅 Now that I am using YNAB I am back to budgeting (which I had done in the past, I had just... stopped). And to me the biggest difference is that I am checking in with reality as I spend, not just checking with my feelings. I have a big summer trip coming up, so I am consciously planning what I want to spend. Unlike last year where I just spent, and later was pretty sure some of what I bought was actually not something I would have consciously paid for if I'd been checking how much it was all adding up to be.
I assign the money I earn but I dont feel like it is the same because I never feel like there is scarcity. It is not because I ear a lot of money but because I dont really spend a lot of money so every month I earn more than I spend. I never feel like I need to give up on something else if I buy it because there is already a buffer between how much I earn and how much I spend. That is what makes it feel like I am more like tracking expenses than doing what I am supposed to do.
>I never feel like I need to give up on something else if I buy [something] Remember that you're giving up the future cash flows in perpetuity that amount would yield, or maybe a big payout at retirement time from investing that amount now. (Opportunity cost.)
Giving a dollar ONE JOB is so difficult. We want to give dollars MORE than one job especially when you see your checking account grow and grow. Putting those allocated dollars in a HYSA is giving your dollars more than one job IMHO.
The HYSA is just the location of the money-not its job. I think it's great that you can select one job for each of your dollars AND optimize the account they are located in. ~Ernie
I would start by creating a budget template. This will give you the clarity you need to start prioritizing your dollars. support.youneedabudget.com/en_us/creating-a-budget-template-a-guide-ByZJZx_R9 ~Ernie
30:58 _"And some people are like 'I don't wanna be controlled by YNAB!! GLBHRLLB!' "_ Heck, yeah! YNAB is a fickle and jealous god! YNAB giveth, YNAB taketh away (to another category)! It will deliver some punches, folks, which is why you have to learn to roll with them. And, of course, you need to create a special category called *'YNAB Sacrifice'* and put a little Netflix/eating out money there every month, so when come time for the next local bank failure the Budgeting gods spare your savings account... hopefully! ( oДo)
How is allocating funds ahead of time different than making a budget? I’m not asking to be annoying, I am a huge YNAB/Budget Nerds fan and a non-YNAB user 😂 I just don’t know how giving every dollar a job ahead of time is different than making a budget I want to understand!
You feel the scarcity of your money when you give every dollar a job. You acknowledge it can only do so much. And this scarcity gives you clarity. It becomes crystal clear what your highest priorities are. When I was doing traditional budgeting, I never felt the scarcity of my money so I always felt like I could afford anything (especially at the beginning of the month). So I'd spend all this money that I hadn't yet received (but knew would be there with my next paycheck) only to realize that once I received the money, it actually needed to do something else for me! For me, traditional budgeting only worked in a perfectly controlled environment. Giving every dollar a job worked in real life. ~Ernie
@@rivasoucie let's say I have $10.00 in my bank account. I know I'm getting another $10 next week so I create a plan for how I'm going to spend that $20. I decide to put $15 towards food and $5 towards gas. In this scenario, I cannot actually buy $15 of groceries because I only have $10 of money right now. But I don't have that kind of clarity with this traditional budget. So maybe I do buy $15 of groceries and I put it on the CC because I know I'm getting paid in a week, and I'll have the money by then. But then when I go to fill up my vehicle I realize I'm running on fumes and actually need $10 of gas to get me around until my next paycheck. Ugh-I just spent $15 on groceries and now with $10 of gas spending I've gone over my total budget by $5, which causes me to steal from the next paycheck! And I keep doing this over and over and over. Always stealing from the future prevents me from ever actually getting ahead or feeling like I'm getting ahead. Yes, it's a simplistic and probably dumb example, but the point is that forecasting future money (i.e. traditional budgeting) doesn't eliminate the decisions about what the money I have right now needs to do for me. That said, I get the sense you are a very experienced and successful budgeter! To you, there's a really good chance that traditional budgeting feels like giving every dollar a job! This mindset shift we're talking about is super helpful when there hasn't been a lot of previous success in money management. I definitely know that was the case for me! I hope that sheds a bit more light on the YNAB methodology. As always, I appreciate your comments! ~Ernie
I think if you are good at tradtional budgets (and have a way to modify it in the case of overspending somewhere), they can be pretty much the same as the zero based budget and the 4 rules of YNAB. I think the big part is how few people are able to make good choices with their future money, and YNAB as a program litterally won't let you plan with money you don't have sitting in your hand. I mean, you can plan where you are going to put it-- but the program is *very* clear about what you actually have and what digital envelopes it is in.
Hmmm oh I think I understand a little! It’s a lot to keep track of in your head or on a spreadsheet especially if you’re not well-calibrated about spending. I would pretty much never spend ‘ahead of time’ or I guess go into the red is another way to put it. If I only have a bit of discretionary left until I have more money coming in from a pay or something, I naturally just stop spending on wants and start funding my needs more carefully. I don’t know if that really makes sense. But I’m starting to get what you’re talking about a little bit!
You can! We recommend creating a separate budget for your business (under the same YNAB account). Here are some business resources that might help www.ynab.com/small-business/ ~Ernie
Isn't it time that reports allow you to show your spending (over time) by category? I know my gadget category is a bit out of control, but a stacked bar chart showing my target in one color and how much I "covered" with the emergency fund in another color would help.
To me, it’s like the difference between counting calories and menu planning.
Which is also a problem for me 😂😢
I was looking at clothes and found something I liked. My husband asked, are you buying that. I said, "No, I'm out of money in that category, and I don't want to move money from any other category. I have been tracking for years, but YNAB has helped me both to spend more freely and more carefully.
Nice! That's how I am feeling.
Nice. My wife was looking at some clothes the other day and found something she liked. I asked _"Are you buying that??"_ She said _"F- yeah, I'm buying that! Try and stop me with your budget, accounting boy! I'm 40 pounds heavier than you, let's roll!!!"_ ( oДo)
I chickened out (" -.-)
Having an app that tells me, I can't afford this right now, is very refreshing.
Just deleted my “Stuff I forgot about“ category because of this episode to further more commit to making a choice while allocating money. Great episode guys, thanks!
I've used YNAB to track for the first 5 years of using it and was motivated purely by the data. Progress was there because I was aware of my personal finances, but the progress was minimal. Once I actually started applying the YNAB principals, the progress was on a whole new level. All of a sudden it clicked and I actually feel in control of my finances now.
"the progress was minimal" - this is exactly my experience with my spreadsheet! In fact, I don't even know if there was progress. We were either spending more than we make or maintaining the status quo. ~Ernie
**YNAB WIN** We live in the UK, and this past week, my daughter had to be rushed to a specialist hospital in London, which is far from where we live. I stayed in the hospital with her, and we were there for an entire week before she was finally allowed home yesterday. My husband and I have only been doing YNAB for a couple of months now. My win is that because I was unable to work the entire week (I dont get paid/benefits if Im not at work) but YNAB had allowed me to build what I called a “loss of income” fund, (what you guys refer to as an “emergency fund”) I had only built 2 months at this point, but I know this month now, because of having that fund available, I can “roll with the punches” and I will have the funds available to be able to pay my bills. Thankyou so much from us, a family of fans from the UK!
Sorry for the health emergency! But how nice that money didn't have to be one of your concerns with all that else was going on!
@@lisaroper421 Im so grateful we dont have to pay medical expenses, apart from prescriptions in the UK, otherwise it would be a whole different story.
I think embracing the scarcity gets easier when you can make a choice. When it actually feels like a choice, instead of feeling like not having enough. That happened for me in the past few weeks when I had saved a few hundred dollars in true expense categories vs not having any money allocated in my true expense categories.
Well said!
So needed this today. I am about 2 months in and sometimes, I'm seriously like, what am I doing? LOL
YNAB Win: One month into YNAB I was already 42 days in my Age of Money. Two months in I'm 56 days in my Age of Money. It's so SOO cool. Never had this insight in my spreadsheet. Not like YNAB gives me.
>One month into YNAB I was already 42 days in my Age of Money
I don't think that's mathematically possible! But maybe you were adding some backdated transactions. Congratz!
@@fsmoura I thought it was wrong at first too. I looked back and I was on for a partial month and started the following month with 11 days. I'm at 55 days now 2 months in. I do have all of my savings in there, but am an actual month ahead.
@@libbysworld7649 How did you manage to get a month ahead? I am actually working on that, but it's hard!
I’ve used the software for tracking and it does an amazing job at it. My biggest challenge is getting my spouse to get on board with money to start YNABing. Only when all parties agree is when changes will start to show.
All the best to you fellow YNABers!
My advice would be to try and make your money meetings fun (as possible)! Involve your significant other with goals and start funding them. It's pretty satisfying buying 'wants' that have been saved up for. Also satisfying when an appliance breaks, but you have a category that you have been slowly putting money into for months/years that more than offsets the cost of a replacement.
I have the same issue getting my spouse on board. But I think it will be easier later once I'm able to provide the evidence that it is helping by being able to make those purchases in cash after saving for them.
At first, I was budgeting, but I got comfortable moving money around and started tracking. It pushed me back a little, and I was confused about what was going on, but I’m back to budgeting again.
I have had YNAB for just over 2 weeks. I worked to get control over what I needed to spend absolutely as a priority for my must pay bills. When it came to splitting the rest of the money for my daily/fun money spending I was completely lost, looking at 1 week of dining out, and spending money on things I wanted and I ran low on money that I could spend freely but still had enough to cover for all my needs. Figuring out those more loose spending categories was challenging but I have been able to support myself and get a handle on where my money was going while establishing healthy spending limits on my non essential spending. Allocating money is amazing.
Yes, allocating money is amazing! And you're absolutely right, it does take a bit to find an allocating flow. ~Ernie
Also, as you do it for longer those fun categories might have a chance to beef up a bit, and then it feels less like a squeeze.
That's been my experience. 😊
I think it took me two, maybe, 3 months and a few budget resets to really get YNAB working. Once I did I really felt the power of YNAB. Funny enough I didn't know there were rules. I think I just generally understood the concept of the envelope method supercharged by technology and that really is all you need to YNAB at the start. Now I watch a podcast on budgeting. So I'm all in and I suggest it to everyone.
That is funny you didn't know about the rules but still picked up on the methodology! ~Ernie
*First rule of YNAB club:* Always remember the rules of YNAB club! ( oДo)
This is such an important episode for all to listen to! Thank you.
A lot of us needed this . I use YNAB daily and I am into my third year . ( UK) It has turned my spending around. Lots of good points made about tracking as opposed to YNABing plus maybe I do too much of rolling with the punches as it takes time to modify spending habits .
I use a hybrid system. I can't structure fun money, it takes the fun out of it, but I want charts later. So my discretionary spending goes into a discretionary spending bucket. I put transactions into specific tracking categories which immediately go to overspent and are then covered with the discretionary bucket funds. I buy coffee, I put that purchase into the coffee category (which was assigned $0 so it's negative now), and then I cover the overspend from the big discretionary budget to take it back to $0. I can see how much is in the master discretionary bucket so I know the global limit for discretionary spends.
Yes, I do the same! I wish there was a subcategory purely for tracking e.g. under a "takeout" category, you could have "coffee", "lazy dinner" subcategories which you don't assign money to directly. Instead, when you categorise a purchase as "coffee", it takes money out of "takeout", but it appears as an extra level of detail in reports. This would allow us to make decisions like, "huh half of this money is going to coffee, do i need to cut back specifically on coffee? should I create and fund a separate category just for coffee?"
Or with a "subscriptions" category, you can mark purchases as "netflix", "amazon prime" subcategories, etc. so that it appears separately in reports, but you're still just funding one "subscriptions" category.
Maybe subcategory isn't the best name as you're not assigning money to it but I can't come up with better ideas (tags?)
I don't think this is considered not YNABing. It's just a slush fund concept. You don't have to have granular categories and assignments to not be tracking.
If you put the money into the specific category _before_ spending, you're YNABing, if you spend and hope to be able to cover with money from another category, you're skating on thin ice.
@@fsmoura Yes but he just is using a slush fund for fun money. I think he's still YNABing. I do the same thing. I have a slush fund of money for the month and then once I spend it I assign to the specific category. I never go over my slush fund amount.
Before ynab tracking was my issue. I was forecasting how my money should be spent but not tracking where it actually went. that's why i started ynab and now i love the method.
I just hope that when Ernie finally watches "The Notebook" he remembers to mention it in a video. (He doesn't even have to tell us about how much he cried and loved it! 😆)
Believe me, if I ever watch it you'll definitely know 🤣 ~Ernie
YNABing is about being intentional with your money, not reactionary. You are tracking with intention and a plan. Your budget will evolve over time as you use the software and YNAB. Its so empowering and a game changer.
As I was watching this absolute gem of a video I received an email from YNAB telling me that they have yet again increased their annual rate by 10%... Looks like I'll have to check in my budget what I'm letting go this time in order to pay for being able to see what I'm letting go off...😂
I haven't been properly budgeting for 2 years. I had to leave the country at some point and never lived in one place for more than a year. It's kind of hard to budget when you're not aware of the living costs in a new place. YNAB however helped me with tracking our family's finances in several currencies and in several countries.
Gosh, it really does hit you in the face. Right now my feeling is that I would have to be making x2 or x3 what I'm making, which sucks, to achieve my financial goals / "afford" what I want to afford. But it's true that there's not any other way. "I don't really know of any other way to really discover what you want out of life than actually allocating money" really hit home. DAMN IT YNAB hahaha. Like, I've never felt more poor than right now and more further away from my goals, but I guess at least I'm facing it eye to eye? Aaaaaanyways. Got myself into some CC debt this past month and it seems it'll have to happen again but... It's all damn hard because I have a loan I'm still paying from an old business. But oh well. Little by little. Also will try to earn more money other ways, fingers crossed. Anyways. Thanks for these videos. They *are* thought provoking, which is good.
You've got the right mentality-little by little. That's how you build momentum! Always cheering you on! ~Ernie
Kind of an aside tracking over a long time is valuable to me. When I can’t remember a time something happened I follow the money particularly if I’m good to fill in the memo field. Then I can search and bail out my old man memory
Tracking definitely has its place! ~Ernie
Tracking is good ... but ... tracking convinces you that you have a budget, and are therefore planning.
Part of it feels like it’s learning hurdles. Tracking expenses AND zero based budgeting for some can be a very daunting task. I have friends who have tried YNAB and get hung up on balances not matching up.
I agree. Learning anything new can be a daunting task. I think the key is letting go of perfection and celebrating the small wins along the way. Then, years down the road, we can look back and laugh at how far we've come 😊 ~Ernie
Balances must match! ( oДo) REEEEEEEEEEE
Is there a YNAB report that shows me the categories month over month that I've overspent into and had to 'roll with the punches' and allocate more? I'm looking to identify common areas where I'm overspending and need to behave/have more discipline?
There isn't a report to see where you've been overspending. If you use Targets, you could compare your Average Spend in a category to the Target amount to gain some overspending insights. ~Ernie
I've been using YNAB since January 2024 and now it's almost July 1st so tonight I did an audit of where the heck is all my money going and I have found the source of the problem... me. So I made some budget goals for July and wanted to make a note in YNAB so I remember how much I wanted to spend in each area (wait for it...) So I was going to come onto TH-cam and find a random YNAB video and pose the question.. how do I make a note in YNAB to remember my plan for next month. This is the video I click on and not 5 minutes into it, DUH! I'm expense tracking, not ynabing! Thank you for the very timely video, I have allocated my funds for next month, based only on what's available in my account today. I think I may be on to something here .. thank you!
The stars aligned for you! Here's to many YNAB wins for you this month! ~Ernie
2 years in and I’ve just realised I’m just tracking
@@tubeMonger Its not too complicated. You can track if you want but if you want ultimate power over your money you should use the software to its fullest potential.
Wow...I literally had this feeling I wasn't doing this right last week and damn this is the hard truth I needed to hear
I have a bad habit of just using my credit card and then covering outta my budget later.Ive been using Ynab for 2 years. But seems I’m just tracking.
Looks like you're not alone. Went into cc debt doing this. Would not recommend. Had to do a hard stop on this bad behaviour
The only thing I'm tracking is the amount of times I reconcile per week #YnabMasterRace 😎
🤣🤣🤣 ~Ernie
(Re posting my main point that I put in a thread:) As Mint was dying, I definitely got into the habit of just expense tracking. Meaning I basically spent what "felt" right, and then did an accounting session at the end of the month to see how on track my feelings were 😅
Now that I am using YNAB I am back to budgeting (which I had done in the past, I had just... stopped). And to me the biggest difference is that I am checking in with reality as I spend, not just checking with my feelings. I have a big summer trip coming up, so I am consciously planning what I want to spend. Unlike last year where I just spent, and later was pretty sure some of what I bought was actually not something I would have consciously paid for if I'd been checking how much it was all adding up to be.
"checking in with reality...not just checking with my feelings." I love that! ~Ernie
I assign the money I earn but I dont feel like it is the same because I never feel like there is scarcity. It is not because I ear a lot of money but because I dont really spend a lot of money so every month I earn more than I spend. I never feel like I need to give up on something else if I buy it because there is already a buffer between how much I earn and how much I spend. That is what makes it feel like I am more like tracking expenses than doing what I am supposed to do.
Maybe it's time for a big, audacious savings goal? ~Ernie
>I never feel like I need to give up on something else if I buy [something]
Remember that you're giving up the future cash flows in perpetuity that amount would yield, or maybe a big payout at retirement time from investing that amount now. (Opportunity cost.)
@@fsmoura Well I have thought about saving money in case of income loss in the future but that does not feel like very exciting saving goal.
Giving a dollar ONE JOB is so difficult. We want to give dollars MORE than one job especially when you see your checking account grow and grow. Putting those allocated dollars in a HYSA is giving your dollars more than one job IMHO.
The HYSA is just the location of the money-not its job. I think it's great that you can select one job for each of your dollars AND optimize the account they are located in. ~Ernie
@@YNABofficial Fair enough, and thank you for the perspective. Moving money around smacks too much of juggling CC debt to me LOL.
How do you set it up when you don't have enough to make all of your bills?
I would start by creating a budget template. This will give you the clarity you need to start prioritizing your dollars. support.youneedabudget.com/en_us/creating-a-budget-template-a-guide-ByZJZx_R9 ~Ernie
@@YNABofficial thanks so much! I'm going to try this tonight. I'm trying to woo my husband into participating. This will help I think 🤔
I started ynab 3xs...maybe one more time it will click
30:58 _"And some people are like 'I don't wanna be controlled by YNAB!! GLBHRLLB!' "_
Heck, yeah! YNAB is a fickle and jealous god! YNAB giveth, YNAB taketh away (to another category)! It will deliver some punches, folks, which is why you have to learn to roll with them. And, of course, you need to create a special category called *'YNAB Sacrifice'* and put a little Netflix/eating out money there every month, so when come time for the next local bank failure the Budgeting gods spare your savings account... hopefully! ( oДo)
I need a for dummies version.
How is allocating funds ahead of time different than making a budget? I’m not asking to be annoying, I am a huge YNAB/Budget Nerds fan and a non-YNAB user 😂 I just don’t know how giving every dollar a job ahead of time is different than making a budget I want to understand!
You feel the scarcity of your money when you give every dollar a job. You acknowledge it can only do so much. And this scarcity gives you clarity. It becomes crystal clear what your highest priorities are.
When I was doing traditional budgeting, I never felt the scarcity of my money so I always felt like I could afford anything (especially at the beginning of the month). So I'd spend all this money that I hadn't yet received (but knew would be there with my next paycheck) only to realize that once I received the money, it actually needed to do something else for me!
For me, traditional budgeting only worked in a perfectly controlled environment. Giving every dollar a job worked in real life. ~Ernie
But isn’t the entire essence of traditional budgeting giving every dollar a job? Is the difference actually being a month ahead?
@@rivasoucie let's say I have $10.00 in my bank account. I know I'm getting another $10 next week so I create a plan for how I'm going to spend that $20. I decide to put $15 towards food and $5 towards gas. In this scenario, I cannot actually buy $15 of groceries because I only have $10 of money right now. But I don't have that kind of clarity with this traditional budget. So maybe I do buy $15 of groceries and I put it on the CC because I know I'm getting paid in a week, and I'll have the money by then. But then when I go to fill up my vehicle I realize I'm running on fumes and actually need $10 of gas to get me around until my next paycheck. Ugh-I just spent $15 on groceries and now with $10 of gas spending I've gone over my total budget by $5, which causes me to steal from the next paycheck! And I keep doing this over and over and over. Always stealing from the future prevents me from ever actually getting ahead or feeling like I'm getting ahead.
Yes, it's a simplistic and probably dumb example, but the point is that forecasting future money (i.e. traditional budgeting) doesn't eliminate the decisions about what the money I have right now needs to do for me.
That said, I get the sense you are a very experienced and successful budgeter! To you, there's a really good chance that traditional budgeting feels like giving every dollar a job! This mindset shift we're talking about is super helpful when there hasn't been a lot of previous success in money management. I definitely know that was the case for me!
I hope that sheds a bit more light on the YNAB methodology. As always, I appreciate your comments! ~Ernie
I think if you are good at tradtional budgets (and have a way to modify it in the case of overspending somewhere), they can be pretty much the same as the zero based budget and the 4 rules of YNAB.
I think the big part is how few people are able to make good choices with their future money, and YNAB as a program litterally won't let you plan with money you don't have sitting in your hand. I mean, you can plan where you are going to put it-- but the program is *very* clear about what you actually have and what digital envelopes it is in.
Hmmm oh I think I understand a little! It’s a lot to keep track of in your head or on a spreadsheet especially if you’re not well-calibrated about spending. I would pretty much never spend ‘ahead of time’ or I guess go into the red is another way to put it. If I only have a bit of discretionary left until I have more money coming in from a pay or something, I naturally just stop spending on wants and start funding my needs more carefully. I don’t know if that really makes sense. But I’m starting to get what you’re talking about a little bit!
I should be at work but I’m YNAB-ing
embracing the scarcity means roll with the punches
Can you us ynab like mint for business income and expenses tracking ? 😊
You can! We recommend creating a separate budget for your business (under the same YNAB account). Here are some business resources that might help www.ynab.com/small-business/ ~Ernie
Isn't it time that reports allow you to show your spending (over time) by category? I know my gadget category is a bit out of control, but a stacked bar chart showing my target in one color and how much I "covered" with the emergency fund in another color would help.
Sorry, I'm always looking at the ios app instead of the web, and the toolkit is only available on my PC :-).
_YNAB? Because!!_ ( oДo)