A few YNAB questions

[Anonymous]

Arlingtonian703 wrote:

Anonymous wrote:and processing refunds is tough too.

i made a category just for the credit card refunds. i put the refunds here. then, i will use the refund to cover any additional spends. i coudnt figure out a better way, so i choose to apply the refund to another category, rather than putting the money back into the original category.

I'm confused, why wouldn't you put the refund back in the category?

I spend $100 on shirts and then decide to return $60 of them. I put that $60 refund back into the "shirts" category and my net shows I spent $40 on shirts, which is what I'd like it to do.

I don't mean this in a snarky way but sometimes I think most of people's problems with YNAB come from overthinking things.

it confuses me too! but what winds up happening is real time balance in my checking account does not line up with the budgeted amounts. I dont know how or why, but when I don't apply the refund to actual charges in the current credit card billing cycle, my real time cash balance gets thrown off. i pay my credit card off in full every month.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Two super helpful responses for the OP who already said she doesn't know how CC work for YNAB.

[Arlingtonian703]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Two super helpful responses for the OP who already said she doesn't know how CC work for YNAB.

To be fair I wrote one of those responses as well as the very length response outlining exactly how they work

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:i love YNAB. been using for 5 years.

credit cards were the WORST to figure out!

and processing refunds is tough too.

i made a category just for the credit card refunds. i put the refunds here. then, i will use the refund to cover any additional spends. i coudnt figure out a better way, so i choose to apply the refund to another category, rather than putting the money back into the original category.

OP here - this is what I have done right now for the reimbursements but IDK if I am going to be annoyed at myself later that I did that. But that is what I am doing right now.

Someone upthread asked me how much work reimbursement I typically do - I don't know, it varies. Right now I am waiting on a $300 reimbursement for work. But work is really just the tip of iceberg. I also just had to get reimbursed $300 for a PTA event and I'm about to collect appx $1000 for winter swim coach gifts via venmo, then I'll deposit into my bank and then go to the bank to get cash out for it for the coaches. So it's just really a constant thing occurring.

What are your credit card refunds? Do you mean your cash for points? That's what I do with my points. I suppose I was just going to start depositing it directly in my bank account rather than applying it the balance, which is what I had been doing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Two super helpful responses for the OP who already said she doesn't know how CC work for YNAB.

OP and I am still not 100% on the CCs even though you've all been great.

I have 4 accounts:
Bank checking
Bank saving (don't ask - my bank forced me to set it up like this in 2003)
Credit card 1 - negative balance that is currently correct
Credit card 2 - negative balance that is currently correct

I had been manually entering the credit card expenditures myself but I feel like I might just wait until it pulls in automatically and then I approve and assign it that way? I feel like otherwise I'm messing it up and duplicating it.

[Anonymous]

I have a category under Variable expenses called To Be Reimbursed. Love it when I’m dividing up something like show tickets I bought for friends. Can break the purchase to put in my entertainment budget (for my ticket) and then to be reimbursed for friends who will pay back - which helps me remember to get all my money back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a category under Variable expenses called To Be Reimbursed. Love it when I’m dividing up something like show tickets I bought for friends. Can break the purchase to put in my entertainment budget (for my ticket) and then to be reimbursed for friends who will pay back - which helps me remember to get all my money back.

+1 This is exactly what I do. Helps me track reimbursables really well.

[Anonymous]

New poster and longtime YNAB user here. I have a “To Be Reimbursed” row in YNAB and over time it should always be zero - I add charges and then when I get reimbursement check that goes into same category. You can exclude it from reporting.

[Anonymous]

this is also why i like YNAB-- very customizable!

[Anonymous]

I've been using it for more than three years. At first, I hated it. I had been a Mint user for 10+ years and just couldn't wrap my head around YNAB. But so many people love it that I stuck it out and it has changed my life financially. I was not lacking knowledge about how to budget or manage money - I work for a finance-related company and like I said, had been using Mint for more than a decade - but wasn't super disciplined and I was still overspending because of the way Mint works.

It probably took me 2-3 months to fully understand YNAB, but once I did, it was amazing. In three years, I went from overspending on cards and having little savings to being completely debt-free (aside from mortgage) and now have a decent emergency fund and dramatically increased 401k and 529 savings as well. I have categories for things like Travel, Home and Car Maintenance, and Gifts, which in the past always seem to be what would throw off my budgeting attempts.

I have like 10 credit cards (I like the rewards) that I pay in full every month thanks to YNAB. I don't understand why people think it doesn't handle credit cards? Yes, it has its quirks but overall it's amazing and well worth the annual cost.

[Anonymous]

Op here - thanks to this post - I think I have now figured out how to add my credit card purchases in!

We will see if I can figure out how to input the payment when it becomes due. Frankly I hope YNAB figures it out itself

It did manage to figure out that my bank makes me move $25 from checking to savings every month and YNAB canceled it out on its own.

(When I got my first job out of college I got a thing to open a checking / savings bank account at Bank of America and it was free as long as I made one deposit into the savings account a month (?) so I have just been doing that since 2023. I saved $25 a month that way for 20 years and finally cashed out $6k to put towards my son’s bar mitzvah last year. I don’t even know if that’s a normal bank set up but I’m too lazy to change now.

[Anonymous]

I mean to say I’ve been doing that since 2003

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here - thanks to this post - I think I have now figured out how to add my credit card purchases in!

We will see if I can figure out how to input the payment when it becomes due. Frankly I hope YNAB figures it out itself

It did manage to figure out that my bank makes me move $25 from checking to savings every month and YNAB canceled it out on its own.

(When I got my first job out of college I got a thing to open a checking / savings bank account at Bank of America and it was free as long as I made one deposit into the savings account a month (?) so I have just been doing that since 2023. I saved $25 a month that way for 20 years and finally cashed out $6k to put towards my son’s bar mitzvah last year. I don’t even know if that’s a normal bank set up but I’m too lazy to change now.

I don't understand why this would be an issue? You connect your CC accounts to YNAB and it automatically adds your purchases. Then when you pay the CC, the payment is automatically imported from your checking account as a debit, say -$2000) and also imported from your CC account as a credit (+$2000).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:i love YNAB. been using for 5 years.

credit cards were the WORST to figure out!

and processing refunds is tough too.

i made a category just for the credit card refunds. i put the refunds here. then, i will use the refund to cover any additional spends. i coudnt figure out a better way, so i choose to apply the refund to another category, rather than putting the money back into the original category.

OP here - this is what I have done right now for the reimbursements but IDK if I am going to be annoyed at myself later that I did that. But that is what I am doing right now.

Someone upthread asked me how much work reimbursement I typically do - I don't know, it varies. Right now I am waiting on a $300 reimbursement for work. But work is really just the tip of iceberg. I also just had to get reimbursed $300 for a PTA event and I'm about to collect appx $1000 for winter swim coach gifts via venmo, then I'll deposit into my bank and then go to the bank to get cash out for it for the coaches. So it's just really a constant thing occurring.

What are your credit card refunds? Do you mean your cash for points? That's what I do with my points. I suppose I was just going to start depositing it directly in my bank account rather than applying it the balance, which is what I had been doing.

i mean a refund, usually for clothes. I buy things online to try on, and then i return what doesnt fit later.

So the money gets moved from my clothes fund to the credit card for the purchase. and then when i make the return, i put the returns into a seperate line for credit card refunds. I will cover whatever additional spending in that month with the credit card refunds. i pay my credit card off in full, every month.

someone said this doesnt make sense and that i should put the funds back to the clothing category. i agree here, that should work. but what kept happening is that my budgeted amounts were getting thrown off from the real time cash position. so theory vs reality and i came up with my own system of handling it.

i real alot of the YNAB forums and i watch the videos. those are super helpful.

i do a reset about every 6 mos just to keep everything trued up.

i like how customizable it is.

its helped me pay down student loan payments, helped us save many tens of thousands of dollars for housing projects and savings, all with being able to pay off the credit card each month. really worth the annual fee.

i know where every dollar I spend goes and thats a powerful thing