YNAB - how long does it take to set up?
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Anonymous
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Op here-- I've set my budget and everything but is it normal to feel like things are kind of wonky until my next credit card statement closes? Maybe bc I'm starting this in mid November and trying to make up all of the annual expenses I've budgeted for in the final two months of the year it's distorting things?
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Anonymous
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Things will feel wonky for a while - there’s a learning curve with YNAB for sure!
But stick with it! We’re almost 6.5 years in with YNAB and it’s been amazing. Literally can’t imagine life without jt |
Anonymous
| Totally fine to be wonky for a bit. You're shifting from reactive to prospective financial planning. There will be some changes and bumps until you figure out your rhythm. Keep at it! |
Anonymous
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https://www.reddit.com/r/ynab/
Is a great resource. There are also Facebook groups |
Anonymous
If you pay off your CC in full every month - unless you’re on the credit card float now - you can assign the amount of what you owe to the CC now. |
Anonymous
What do you mean by making up all the annual expenses? |
Anonymous
If I budget $3000 annually for home maintenance I'm now on the hook for $1500 in November and again in December. I can change my targets for now, but I set up my budget with an annual mindset for some of the bigger reserves and realized that means I'm budgeting to establish the reserve by EOY vs 12 months from today. I'm also trying to figure out how to account for credit card payments. I always pay in full every month and I feel like I just want to delete those statement payment transactions bc they're already accounted for by pulling straight from my checking account into the categories. I still haven't been able to sit down and watch some videos so that's my plan for the weekend. |
Anonymous
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If you set it up correctly, as you spend on your CC, YNAB will take from your categories anything you put on the card and move it to the CC payment portion. I like this video on CCs.
https://youtu.be/bZlAj1utJFI |
Anonymous
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So on the first point, I also like setting annual goals like that. In your example I'd set up a $3,000/yr goal to start in January 2025 and, in the meantime, just budget $250/month in November and December.
Also, setting up your budget the first time is a bit different than budgeting recurring income. So if you have $10,000 saved up to budget today, for example, and make $2,000/month you have $10,000 to allocate now to different categories and then $2,000/month thereafter. You may want to put $1,500 to home maintenance to initially fund the category and then a smaller amount each month going forward. Definitely watch a video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzVpmBv6s3s) about how credit cards work in YNAB because this...
Doesn't make sense if I'm understanding you correctly. You budget money you have in your checking account to the different categories - when buy something on a credit card money, on your budget, moves from that category to your CC payment category. Paying off the CC creates a transaction moving the money from your checking account to your CC account. There are no superfluous transactions. You should be deleting anything because "they're already accounted for". |
Anonymous
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Stick with it OP, it will start to make more sense as you go along! I used Mint for about 10 years but always ended up overspending. Switched to YNAB in Jan. 2020 and it really has been life-changing. CCs are paid in full every month, kids' 529s are funded, etc.
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Anonymous
I hear you. I did the same thing with having to front some cash into my budget to get me set up with a new target, like savings goals and payments that moving forward I want to hit by the end of the year. I moved things around to make it happen. Part of the adjustment of moving to this way of budgeting, so I get what you're saying. It will even out to a regular cadence/cost once those payments are made. I chimed in earlier but my credit cards are "invisible" in YNAB. I enter in all transactions manually which means I control the inflow and outflow. All of my cards are paid in full each month out of my checking account, which is basically ground zero for all expenses at the end of the day. So in YNAB I enter in all expenses as pulling from my checking account, and then separately in the real world (unknown to YNAB) I just pay my CCs in full every month. The cash/cost is still the same; the path to get there is just different with how I use YNAB. Note that this won't work if you want to sync all of your accounts though. |
Anonymous
| Why complicate things to pretend something else is happening in YNAB? I don’t see the benefit |
Anonymous
| I tried YNAB 10 years ago and was really frustrated by the fact that they hated credit cards. I don't want to use my debit card for anything, but YNAB at the time made categorizing credit card transactions really challenging. Has that gotten better? I think not since PP is talking about the credit card "float" which I assume is the period between when I charge something and pay it off. |
Anonymous
I never tried YNAB before but IMO once you get the CC set up in YNAB it’s so easy now. The float is when you are actually in debt but you don’t know it because you pay off your CC bill on time. You are on the float if you cannot pay your CC bill right now, but you can when you get your next paycheck. |
Anonymous
| I meant I never tried it before 1.5 years ago - idk what it was like 10 years ago. |