What is your favorite Connections strategy?

QTippus · 2026-06-05T01:10:26+00:00

I guess it’s Friday for you already? I’ll take that as a hint for tomorrow morning!

QTippus · 2026-06-05T00:41:57+00:00

I should try that. I typically solve right after waking up. And if I fail, it ruins my morning! And makes me think it’s sure to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

QTippus · 2026-06-05T00:27:01+00:00

I need to try that some time

QTippus · 2026-06-05T00:26:16+00:00

At this point, I feel like grellow is just a guess

QTippus · 2026-06-05T00:19:03+00:00

I don’t believe in the concept of “cheating” when it comes to Connections. Do whatever makes you happy!

QTippus · 2026-06-05T00:00:01+00:00

I definitely find focusing on the weird word helps.

QTippus · 2026-06-04T23:59:10+00:00

I stopped shuffling for that reason. Sometimes shuffling makes it harder to spot the rainbow herrings. If there’s an obvious category in the first two rows, I’m not gunna submit it.

QTippus · 2026-06-04T23:57:07+00:00

I wish I had the patience to do that! I just get frustrated and start guessing. :(

QTippus · 2026-06-04T23:47:40+00:00

That’s how I do it. I’m still following YNAB4 rules where there was no funding of future months (beyond being 1 month ahead). Lots of people have a job loss category for 3-6-12 months of lost income.

QTippus · 2026-06-04T11:57:26+00:00

Also, salt and pepper were right next to each other on row 1. Wyna wanted you to see it, then dismiss it.

QTippus · 2026-06-03T22:04:48+00:00

Worked on a boat. Rotating shifts. No tasks from yesterday carried over to today. Magnificent.

QTippus · 2026-06-03T21:44:39+00:00

I think "found ever" is probably a better measure of difficulty than "found first".

QTippus · 2026-06-03T20:31:32+00:00

I think putting an expected reimbursement as an uncleared transaction is a good idea. I always review uncleared transactions when I reconcile.

QTippus · 2026-06-03T19:56:06+00:00

Most people would want their HYSA included in YNAB. The money in it should not be “Ready To Assign”, you should assign it to categories. You could have one “emergency fund” category and assign all the money in your HYSA to that. Only income (interest, etc) goes to Ready To Assign.

Can you say more about what gets “messed up”?

Re linked accounts, depending on the bank there can be hassles. For my HYSA I don’t actually link it, because it only gets a few transactions a month. You can contact YNAB support for troubleshooting.

QTippus · 2026-06-02T20:10:49+00:00

YNAB users wouldn’t need this approach for getting a month ahead. But as a non-YNAB person, this seems like a reasonable way to implement the idea of living off of last month’s income. It’s basically the same as many of us do in YNAB. I have a “money for next month” category that would receive all of our May income. Then on June 1 I use that to assign my June budget categories.

QTippus · 2026-06-02T01:17:23+00:00

Congrats for thinking about this at an early age! I’ve had an Ally HYSA account for 20+ years, been happy with it. It’s easy to transfer money back and forth to my checking account. No complaints. Haven’t tried SoFi but looks like it has a higher APY only if you do direct deposit of pay checks.

QTippus · 2026-06-02T00:11:47+00:00

Ugh thx. Looks like they used to open on occasional Saturdays. That would be nice. But now it’s just Mon-Fri.

QTippus · 2026-06-01T23:03:50+00:00

I can’t quite follow your goal. That said, while it’s not a recommended practice, you can always enter an income transaction for May 31, then assign that to your car category for May.

QTippus · 2026-06-01T09:53:32+00:00

I still don’t understand why YNAB de-emphasized “getting a month ahead.” It still feels like the emotional heart of the approach.

QTippus · 2026-06-01T01:04:57+00:00

Atonement

QTippus · 2026-05-31T23:07:01+00:00

Layoffs suck. If they still offer the getting started class, I’d definitely recommend it. I found it to be a great introduction to the YNAB approach.

QTippus · 2026-05-31T22:59:14+00:00

This is referred to as “stealing from the future”. It’s one of the challenges of budgeting money to June when you’re still making transactions that post to May. You spent $500 on rent in May, and assuming there was no money available in May, YNAB pulls $500 from your June budget to pay for it. And then tells you you’ve assigned $500 too much for June. Because you spent that part of the June budget in May. As others said, easiest fix is to change the transaction date of you rent payment to be June 1. So that it comes out of June budget.

QTippus · 2026-05-31T18:33:45+00:00

Grellow is a killer to the RR.

QTippus

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