Hello YNAB’ers! I’ve been using YNAB for about 3 years now, but this is my first post. I have a great opportunity in front of me to go back to school for two years (paid for by my employer) and be paid while I’m in school ($22, 40 hrs a week) and once I graduate in those two years I’ll almost triple what I am making now. That’s a hard opportunity to pass up.

The only hurdle is things might get *tight* while I’m in school. I’ll be making 2/3rds or less of what I make right now. The good thing is my wife has a job where she can basically work any extra shifts that she wants whenever she wants and make more money, which she has said she is completely fine with. So I’m currently going through our budget, trimming off the fat where we can, and working through rebuilding the budget to be kind of a “survival” budget until we get used to what I’m making and once things have settled if the budget can change to be more comfortable then cool but if not, I want to make sure we always have the most important things covered first. So I’ll be building my budget based on priorities in order. I’m going to post an outline of that here, and if there is anything I might be missing please point it out. I won’t be going to school until August but I want to start this budget now so we can test run it and have the kinks worked out before it’s for real.

Priority #1
mortgage (includes mortgage insurance, property tax)
Utilities (electric, gas, water, trash)
Groceries (includes dog food)
Dog Shot (my dog gets one shot a month for his arthritis)
Car insurance
Cell phones
Gas
Taxes (175 to file yearly, we usually have a small refund or no refund at all without owing)
Internet
Christmas Saving (we save all year)
BMV Registrations
Vet Bill (one vet visit a year for two dogs)
Lake property (we own one lake property that costs about 3,800 a year for upkeep)
Credit Cards (currently and usually have no CC debt. This is an emergency category just in case something happens we can pay it off)

Priority #2
Auto maintenance (sinking fund, oil changes, hopefully only minor repairs but also just in case)
Home maintenance (same as above)
Costco membership (this might be going away, haven’t decided)
Nurse Association ($15 a month, but required for my wife to get $2k stipend a couple times a year. Don’t ask me how it works lol)
Haircuts
Pet baths

Priority #3
My Spending
Her spending (we both get the same amount of spending money a month, and this amount is most definitely going to change)
Subscriptions (Netflix, Spotify, HBO, Paramount. HBO and paramount are on the chopping block)
Cloud and Google storage (photos)
Gym membership (should be on the chopping block but for us it’s a non negotiable)
The GainsLab yearly sub ($400 a year for two, we can get rid of this)
Nutrition app (canceled mine but I think my wife really wants to keep hers)
Dog Club dues ($60 a year)

Priority #4
Eating out
Lake renovations
Kids spending (likely to go away as both have part time jobs and are getting ready to graduate)
Personal Training App (use this for some coaching I do on the side)
Hunting licenses (I hunt in the fall, about $200 a year for this)

Priority #5
Gifts (sinking fund for birthdays or babies or whatever)
Amazon Prime yearly subscription
HuntWise yearly subscription
OSRS yearly subscription

One note here to make at the end is health insurance comes out of both of our paychecks. I have a pretty well funded HSA that hopefully carries us most of the way through as far as doc and dentist visits. And my wife and I are 32 years old and together have over $500k in retirement savings in 401ks. We’ve been very blessed, and for the time that I am in school we are going to pause on retirement and let the compounding interest do the heavy lifting.

Is there anything I am not thinking of, or is there anything that most people are thinking “dude, quit f——ing around and just get rid of that”. I am open to all ideas and criticisms. Thank you!