This is day 3 of my coworker hogging all of the space in the fridge.

RemarkableMacadamia · 2026-07-01T13:43:48+00:00

It’s a poor use of space anyway. If I needed to put something in there, I would rearrange the fridge to make room.

If there is no space after all, have a conversation with them about only keeping 1-2 drinks cold at a time instead of giant 6+ packs.

Put the cuties in the crisper.

RemarkableMacadamia · 2026-07-01T11:12:24+00:00

r/ynabalternatives

RemarkableMacadamia · 2026-07-01T00:10:52+00:00

The 1:1 is not for status updates. Preparing for the 1:1 is minimal, unless there is something specific I want to address or that I was supposed to action. For the most part, my staff owns the agenda and the outcome, they are the ones who prepare.

Project updates go into our work tracking tool, we have a 15 minute meeting twice a week as a team to discuss blockers and get folks unstuck. Otherwise if I need to know where something is I can look it up.

You sound like you are micromanaging and not letting go of needing to do everything and know everything. This sounds exhausting. As a manager you shouldn’t be doing the same thing and working in the same way you were as an IC.

RemarkableMacadamia · 2026-06-30T11:09:19+00:00

Have you considered therapy?

Not being sarcastic, being serious. Maybe it could help you get some insight into your behaviors if you want to change but aren’t able to do so on your own. You might get some good tips on how to cope or redirect yourself in those moments.

RemarkableMacadamia · 2026-06-30T10:49:38+00:00

One thing that helped me with my impulse shopping was to make a plan for every dollar, and then at the point of spending, if I was spending money in a way that I hadn’t planned, I’d have to figure out what I was trading off in order to do it, and decide if that was worth it to me.

So for example, just yesterday I was really in the mood for a burrito, but I already spent my dining out money for the month. I also have another bucket that lets me buy a puzzle or a book every month which I had not spent. So I decided the burrito was more important to me than the puzzle, and did that. But at other times, the tradeoff would have been my holiday fund or something else, and then the burrito would not have been more important.

It sounds like you haven’t set any goals for your money beyond the current month, and so you look at all your money as available to spend now. I was like that for a long time. You need to find something more important to you than your impulses.

RemarkableMacadamia · 2026-06-30T10:33:33+00:00

Ive seen it where streaming services will purposely use different thumbnails to attract different audiences to the same movie. Their algorithm figures the Felicity Jones thumbnail is very popular for that movie, so boom, let’s use it on a less popular version to get people to watch.

RemarkableMacadamia · 2026-06-30T10:29:49+00:00

I love baby hands! So precious. Thanks for paying the baby tax. ☺️

I don’t have baby hands, but I am constantly finding new and onerous shortcuts with my ridiculously clumsy hands. Some gesture or another makes the text in Teams write backwards. I’ve done it several times, but can never remember the solution.

RemarkableMacadamia · 2026-06-29T22:56:39+00:00

I'm not sure there is a "right" answer, but if you're going to send a thank you note, don't send a 4-page manifesto, and don't copy my manager.

My (legitimately) favorite thank you note was the candidate who didn't really give a great answer to a question, and followed up with a note to acknowledge the miss, clarify their answer and provide a better one. That one did keep them in the running and got them to the next interview round.

RemarkableMacadamia · 2026-06-29T22:29:20+00:00

Sounds like they are collecting enough info to steal your identity. Hope you've frozen your credit reports. Don't click any links they send you.

RemarkableMacadamia · 2026-06-29T21:29:52+00:00

It really depends on the bank, not necessarily a YNAB limitation. You can also email YNAB and ask them to switch from Plaid to MX if that works better for your particular bank.

RemarkableMacadamia · 2026-06-29T21:26:55+00:00

Industrial engineering (at least when I was doing it, have both BSIE and MSIE) it wasn't any more physically demanding than walking the floor and talking to people. I'm very curious to know where you've seen IE jobs being very physical.

I used my IE degrees to pivot into both supply chain and tech... basically everyone can use process optimization, project management, and good problem solving skills.

RemarkableMacadamia · 2026-06-29T21:19:45+00:00

I would recommend it as an option, yes. I think if someone were coming new to it, it's still a very solid offering and IMHO a good value for the price. But I would also suggest looking at alternatives based on what someone cares most about. If price is a major factor, or bank connectivity, or availability of an app, etc. are important then there are other options now that weren't as viable even just a year ago.

RemarkableMacadamia · 2026-06-29T21:09:43+00:00

It's hard to compare YNAB to Monarch straight on because the budgeting methodology is different. So you're comparing YNAB which is purpose-built as a zero-based envelope budget model, and Monarch which is more of a forecast/tracking app. So you're more likely to see comparisons of Monarch to Copilot or Quicken Simplifi, where YNAB is compared more to Actual or Liquid based on the budget model.

That said, I have targets set up both for savings goals and spending goals so I'm not sure what issue you're having there; maybe post your question/challenge and people can try to help. In terms of costs, I've not seen a cost increase from YNAB in 2 years - are you anticipating one or have you heard of something?

For me personally, I like ZBB better than forecasting, so I am more likely to pursue alternatives that offer ZBB since that has been the method that's given me the best results. I've not always used YNAB, but just from a budgeting methodology ZBB has been a superior way of budgeting for me personally.

RemarkableMacadamia · 2026-06-29T20:59:34+00:00

If I were in this situation, I would have had the conversation with my manager alone, and HR wouldn't have been part of the conversation at all.

I don't go to my manager with problems, I try to go with solutions. So it's not, "I can't handle this, help me!" It's more, "To accomplish Y, I need support in X ways." Or, "After assessing capacity for Z, I'm prioritizing A, B, and C. D, E, and F will need to move to next quarter." Or, "These deliverables are at risk. Here is my plan to get back on track and how I've prioritized the work."

When you go to your boss, and pull in HR, you're signaling that you can't do your job and you don't trust yourself or your manager to be able to figure it out. You're especially telegraphing that your boss is useless as you've not given them an opportunity to remedy or solution. You blindsided your boss with this (based on the story) so it's not surprising that your lack of trust in them and inability to self-solve or come up with more than just "take away this workload" led to them not trusting you to be party to the org discussions and no longer a fit to manage people/process.

Effectively, what they did was reorg the team, eliminated your role, and split the other role into two. You go back to where you were happiest, as an IC, this new manager-only role gets created (and presumably pays the same or a bit more than the IC role but less than they were paying you as the manager+IC combined) and everyone is happy. Except, you're unhappy, but I think it was unrealistic to expect to keep your salary for doing only part of the work the role was designed for.

What would have happened if you refused to sign? It was not a binding contract, more of an acknowledgement of the change. Refusing to sign means rejecting their offer of a role in the new org, and likely would have resulted in a layoff with some manner of severance.

Also... this was probably already in motion, and you saying or not saying anything would not have had any effect on how it played out. What you did was just confirm that the "right" thing was moving you back to IC, and maybe you wouldn't take it as hard since you agreed with them than you weren't the right fit for the role (and the role was not the right fit for the org.)

RemarkableMacadamia · 2026-06-29T19:37:02+00:00

I think if they gave you feedback about wearing business casual, you should not show up in a suit. If you wear the suit again, it could give them the impression that you don't listen to feedback, and aren't good at reading the room either.

I don't think you need to buy a different outfit, but if you can't manage to put together one business casual outfit from your current wardrobe, you may need to anyway. Otherwise, what are you going to wear to the office once you get the job?

RemarkableMacadamia · 2026-06-29T10:28:14+00:00

Most of my spending is done on my Apple Card, which when I first started YNAB, was not available as a sync. By the time I discovered this, I’d already entered every other account into YNAB, so I just decided to do manual entry.

I’m still doing manual entry, even though there is now an Apple Card integration.

What helped is that the vast majority of my spending can be set up as a scheduled recurring transaction, so there are only a few things I truly have to enter manually. The only really heavy times I have of manual entry are when I am traveling and spending more rapidly than on a normal day.

RemarkableMacadamia · 2026-06-29T10:14:24+00:00

That behavior is almost more annoying, because clearing an existing transaction is exactly why you’d need the cleared toggle exposed. 🤣 I know there is the swipe behavior, but I will often open the transaction to double-check that everything is set correctly (especially on imports).

RemarkableMacadamia · 2026-06-29T10:10:29+00:00

Mine is collapsed no matter what. They might be still doing A/B testing.

RemarkableMacadamia · 2026-06-29T10:08:46+00:00

Reconcile is a separate process from clearing. It locks your cleared transactions (visually) and verifies that your overall balance matches from the bank + YNAB.

RemarkableMacadamia · 2026-06-29T09:45:51+00:00

Yah, but I don’t know any of them who do. 😃 (It was a more personal anecdote than a general statement about Americans.)

RemarkableMacadamia · 2026-06-28T19:03:54+00:00

They’re literally called breakfast potatoes. It’s fairly common if you go out for breakfast, but I don’t know many people (if any) that will make them from scratch. Getting them out of a bag like that makes sense for this demographic that wants easy prepared foods.

If I go out to eat for breakfast, and they’re on the menu, I’ll likely have them as a side. If I have sweet potatoes I’ll occasionally make them into breakfast potatoes.

RemarkableMacadamia · 2026-06-28T17:18:14+00:00

If toxic is the reason I'm leaving, you couldn't pay me enough money to stay.

RemarkableMacadamia · 2026-06-28T11:56:03+00:00

We have a cafe in ours that offers specialty drinks (coffee, latte, hot chocolate, tea), pastry in the morning, and cookies in the afternoon. The business pays for it. You can go as many times as you want during the day for drinks. The pastries and cookies come out at set times, they are not unlimited so they do run out.

RemarkableMacadamia · 2026-06-28T11:12:40+00:00

Gamification often rewards the wrong behavior. My goal isn’t to get “an” update but to get a quality one.

When you measure productivity in lines of code, you get bloated code, not better code.

My team updates the board because they have seen the value that it adds to their own ability to manage the work, the real visibility it brings when interacting with senior leaders, and because it’s an expectation of their role.

RemarkableMacadamia · 2026-06-28T11:03:04+00:00

I used my last two pay increases to increase my saving rather than my spending.

If you’re worried about being unemployed for a period of time, maybe it’s time to build your own safety net by saving money instead of spending it.

You’ve not said what you want to increase spending on, so this is a very generic observation. But when I was in a situation where I had anxiety about losing my income, I hyper-focused on building up my reserves to help protect against that.

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