A few YNAB questions

[Anonymous]

I believe a quite a few people here use YNAB.

This is my first month in the one month free trial and likely going to purchase it.

Credit cards are a pain and I really don’t know how to do it but I think that’s going to be too much to ask for anyone to explain here. I’ll try to make time to watch their 20 minute video on it.

How do you factor in things you’re going to be reimbursed for later? I had to put a work charge on my credit card, for example, but I submitted the receipt and will be reimbursed soon.

Two, do you ever go to the bank and withdraw cash to have on hand? I don’t know right now how I will spend it. I could enter it in later, but what do you do in the meantime?

Thank you!

[Anonymous]

I delete reimbursable expenses, both when they’re expended and when they’re reimbursed. I basically exclude then from my system. DH is reimbursed mileage. I treat that as income.

We have two cash budget items - one for me and one for DH. We don’t track cash beyond that. Since it isn’t accounted for, we do minimal cash spending - less than 100 each. If we spend cash on something specific, like our cleaning lady, we track it as a cleaning expense. I think cleaning is the only thing we pay cash for.

[Anonymous]

I stopped using it because it can't handle credit cards. I don't know how people do it.

[Anonymous]

I use Monarch Money and it connects to my credit cards so the charges show up on my cash flow on the day that the charge posts.

For ATM money, I just track it as it’s own category. I could split it out to other categories, but for me I don’t feel the need to track it that closely. It’s enough to me to know I spent $300 cash in a month.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I stopped using it because it can't handle credit cards. I don't know how people do it.

It handles credit cards beautifully, perhaps you don’t understand it.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the ideas! I have two things I pay cash for most often and I suppose I could automatically budget it to those first and then just have a more minor random cash category.

I saw someone else on here say they stopped using their CC with YNAB because it was a pain but I really enjoy my CC rewards so I am NOT going to stop using it. I pay it in full every month. That said I think I have accepted that I need to watch the 20 min video to figure it out and join a Q&A if I still have more questions after that.

[Anonymous]

OP, the YNAB subreddit is a great resource. Just search for the credit card topic and there are lots of old threads on it.

For reimbursable expenses we just enter it as normal and then enter the reimbursement as inflow directly to that category. As a result the transactions offset and look like $0 spending for that category.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, the YNAB subreddit is a great resource. Just search for the credit card topic and there are lots of old threads on it.

For reimbursable expenses we just enter it as normal and then enter the reimbursement as inflow directly to that category. As a result the transactions offset and look like $0 spending for that category.

Oh man, if you can believe it - I have never used Reddit. I don’t know if I should break the seal I have enough terrible online habits as it is

[Anonymous]

Oh god, save yourself! Don’t delve into Reddit. I’ll find a useful post or two and share them here. Read them but nothing else!!

[Anonymous]

Or better yet, I can explain how credit cards work! Let me know if you have a specific aspect you’d like clarified

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Or better yet, I can explain how credit cards work! Let me know if you have a specific aspect you’d like clarified

Yes, don’t go back to Reddit for me thank you for the offer!! I’ll try to respond here or page you when I have an actual specific question. Thank u again!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or better yet, I can explain how credit cards work! Let me know if you have a specific aspect you’d like clarified

Yes, don’t go back to Reddit for me thank you for the offer!! I’ll try to respond here or page you when I have an actual specific question. Thank u again!

No, I love talking about You Need a Budget (YNAB)! My wife and I have been using it for five years and I've helped family members get on board with it. I'll do my best to explain the credit card (CC) system in its basics here.

YNAB's system uses both Accounts and Categories. Accounts represent real world accounts where you money sits, Categories in your budget are the "jobs" you've given those real world dollars in YNAB. A CC account is basically just an account with a negative balance and the CC payment category is the category where dollars you've assigned the "pay off your CC" job are located. And YNAB's system is so slick it moves these dollars around seamlessly.

An Example

Let's say you have $1,000 in your checking account. You have a credit card account you've just paid off so it has a $0 balance. And in your budget you've assigned $250 to your grocery category.

You go to Whole Foods and spend $100 on groceries, here's what happens:

1. You enter the transaction in YNAB - Whole Foods is the payee, Groceries is the category, and your CC is the account
2. When you hit enter $100 moves from your Grocery category to your CC category - so now your grocery category has $150 ($250 less $100), your CC category has $100 in it, your CC account now has a ($100) balance (that's negative $100), and your checking account balance is unchanged at $1,000
3. Now you go to your CC's website and pay it off using your checking account. In YNAB you go to your CC account and click 'Record Payment' and the amount that pops up will be equal to what you have in that CC category (but you can manually change this to whatever payment amount you're making). When you hit enter your checking account will go down by $100, your CC account will go from negative $100 to $0, and your CC category will go from $100 to $0.

I don't know if that helps at all but basically spending money on a credit card will make your CC account more and more negative and YNAB will move the money from the category you spent from into the CC payment category. Paying the CC off is just transferring money from your checking account to your CC account.

Everything is right with the world if the total amount assigned to your categories is equal to the amount in your cash accounts (like checking) and your CC payment category has the same amount as your CC account (but opposite, if you have a negative $100 balance you'll have positive $100 in your CC payment category)

This assumes you're paying your CC off each month, things work the same but it's a bit different if you spend more on CC than you have money in the bank.

Anyway, hope this helps! Happy to answer specific questions if you think of any.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I stopped using it because it can't handle credit cards. I don't know how people do it.

It handles credit cards beautifully, perhaps you don’t understand it.

+1 The credit cards are all in the setup. If you set up correctly on day 1, it's easy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, the YNAB subreddit is a great resource. Just search for the credit card topic and there are lots of old threads on it.

For reimbursable expenses we just enter it as normal and then enter the reimbursement as inflow directly to that category. As a result the transactions offset and look like $0 spending for that category.

Oh man, if you can believe it - I have never used Reddit. I don’t know if I should break the seal I have enough terrible online habits as it is

I don't use Reddit much but the YNAB subreddit is good.

[Anonymous]

OP do you know what the greatest dollar amount you will probably carry for work at any given time?