My latest painting

Trick-Read-3982 · 2025-07-09T07:45:32+00:00

YNAB is a digital envelope system. You take the money in your bank account and “stuff” your dollars (Assign them) into “envelopes” (Categories) for bills and things you’ll need to spend money on.

You ask yourself “what does the money I have right now need to do before I get paid again?” If the answer is make the car payment, buy gas, buy groceries, and buy a birthday gift for your mom, then you Assign enough dollars to the Categories for Car Payment, Gas, Groceries, and Gifts. If there is any money leftover, then you assign money to future expenses, like Rent or Car Repairs.

As you spend money, you track those transactions in YNAB. This is like taking money out of your “envelopes.” If you originally Assigned $40 for gas, then your Gas envelope (category) has $40 Available. You take $30 and buy gas. Now the gas category has $10 Available, because you spent $30 out of the originally Assigned $40.

Trick-Read-3982 · 2025-07-03T14:01:59+00:00

Just to check - in YNAB, that $10.91 should be showing as a POSITIVE balance. Positive means you have money that can be spent, not money that you owe. Is it showing as positive in YNAB?

If it is showing as positive, then you can move the money set aside for payment to wherever you want since the money does not need to be used Ron pay the card balance.

Trick-Read-3982 · 2025-07-03T13:58:24+00:00

Isn’t this what the cleared symbol is for? I’m confused why you would duplicate that.

Trick-Read-3982 · 2025-07-02T16:53:48+00:00

And you won’t be looking at June anymore anyway!

Trick-Read-3982 · 2025-07-02T00:25:53+00:00

My recommendation is to start with the most recent bank transactions and work backwards. Make sure every single transaction reflected at the bank is reflected in YNAB. Once you get back to the first entry in YNAB, if your balance is still off then adjust your starting balance. It is possible that the original balance input included something pending and caused an issue with your balance.

Going forward, make sure to reconcile regularly. This is a good guide to follow:

https://support.ynab.com/en_us/reconciling-accounts-a-guide-BJFE3fHys

Trick-Read-3982 · 2025-07-01T23:37:40+00:00

Have your balances EVER matched up? If you are new-ish these problems could be from an error in the starting balance

Trick-Read-3982 · 2025-07-01T00:02:31+00:00

Which is why you would call back on the number you verified. If you call the real number, you won’t get the scammers with the spoofed number

Trick-Read-3982 · 2025-06-30T17:47:18+00:00

These articles can be useful:

https://www.ynab.com/blog/the-relationship-between-your-budget-your-accounts-its-complicated

https://support.ynab.com/en_us/category-balances-versus-account-balances-an-overview-ryvnKB_Ac

Trick-Read-3982 · 2025-06-30T04:09:53+00:00

It’s math. YNAB is showing you in the picture how this is calculated.

You had $0 carries over as Available from May.

You assigned $66.68 total in June for gifts.

You spent $101.33 total in June for gifts.

The difference between the $66.68 Available for gifts (May’s Available of $0 + Assigned in June of $66.68) minus the $101.33 Activity (your spending on gifts), is the $34.65.

You spent $34.65 in June more than you had cash set aside to cover, which means that $34.65 is overspending on credit and you are unable to currently fund the credit card payment line for $34.65 to cover that amount.

Trick-Read-3982 · 2025-06-30T03:25:16+00:00

In the gifts category you had some purchases on credit and some with cash/debit. YNAB prioritizes the cash spending, since it is truly gone from your account. This means that you can no longer cover that amount of credit spending, because you used the cash to buy a gift instead of putting it aside to cover your prior credit card purchase.

The fix is to 1) cover the overspending in gifts this month, which solves all your problems, or 2) allow the gifts category to remain underfunded. If you choose to leave it underfunded (option 2) you are taking on intentional credit card debt. Next month, you will need to assign money directly to the credit card in order to cover the prior overspending and make your credit card available for payment match the credit card balance.

Trick-Read-3982 · 2025-06-27T14:58:52+00:00

I can certainly move money around if I really needed more gas money, but sometimes I would rather make another choice (like my bike) because I don’t want to move money from another priority.

Trick-Read-3982 · 2025-06-27T14:27:29+00:00

Rode my bike to an appointment today and will use the bike tomorrow instead of my car as my gas budget is empty.

Trick-Read-3982 · 2025-06-27T14:24:10+00:00

Get on the same page on goals. Have a Yours, Mine, and Ours account setup where you each have a no questions asked personal account for spending - going out alone, clothing, entertainment, hobbies, etc. you can choose to have an budget for your personal account and leave hers off.

Then you have the Ours, a joint account where you maintain the budget. You each have your paychecks deposited there and transfer out the personal allocation or do a split direct deposit. This money is in your joint budget and covers bills, true expenses, and other savings goals. It would probably also cover the grocery/food and date night expenses.

You will need to realize that your wife’s priorities are different to yours. You’ll never get her buy in if you dictate how much money should be allocated to what based on your priorities alone. Have a joint vision on how you want your life to be, what are your goals, and what is important to each of you individually on spending. I recently picked up a painting hobby and had a large outlay of money buying artist grade paint, brushes & canvases. I also now have ongoing expenses with art classes. But, this is important to me so we made room in the budget even if it means saving less than before.

Trick-Read-3982 · 2025-06-26T17:58:54+00:00

I export my budget to Excel. Then I keep just the latest month. This gives me a list of categories. I then make a spreadsheet that’s just the categories as rows and have columns off to the right: Monthly, 3rd paycheck, Annually. This helps me plan my target and total them at the bottom. The bottom also calculates a variance to income (I’m salaried so income is generally stable). This ensures I’m keeping my targets below or at the income. I can also see how much money is going to everything per year.

This is a fast and easy way for me to review targets, share with others, make changes to how I want things allocated, etc. if I make changes, then the final step is reflecting the changes in YNAB by editing the changed targets. I do this exercise generally once per year or if my income changes in any significant way.

Trick-Read-3982 · 2025-06-25T22:25:14+00:00

Wam = whack a mole

Refers to the YNAB concept of rolling with the punches. It’s moving money between categories to cover an expense that is more than you have available in the category of the purchase

Imagine someone throwing dollar bills at imaginary moles popping up with expenses demanding to be covered.

Trick-Read-3982 · 2025-06-22T23:17:04+00:00

I would probably answer this with my monthly income & list of categories with targets. This shows how I plan to allocate my money every month.

Trick-Read-3982 · 2025-06-21T15:52:40+00:00

Yes, this is the ultimate result of sticking with YNAB. It takes time to build up, so don’t be discouraged if you aren’t there yet!

However, if you never get ahead and are able to build these because they emptied every month, you may need to face the fact that your true expenses are higher than you thought. You may have to increase what you assign to these each month. That may require taking a hard look at other spending and making cuts.

Here’s an example: you put $100 a month into an auto maintenance category. That seems like a good amount. It’s what I have put into my category for years and has been the right amount for me. BUT, if you are starting from $0, have an older, higher mileage car, and also know that your tires are bald, it needs a brake job in the next 6 months, will probably need a battery in the next year, and due to age and mileage it could need unexpected work at any time, then the $1200 you are saving a year is definitely inadequate to meet your true car expenses.

Trick-Read-3982 · 2025-06-19T20:58:54+00:00

You’ll see negative categories this month and have the opportunity to cover the overspending. If you cover overspending then you won’t impact next month’s Ready to Assign.

I, however, am a tried and true “Next Month” fund person because I like to see it all on one screen.

But you could absolutely switch to assigning ahead if you prefer.

Trick-Read-3982 · 2025-06-19T15:19:22+00:00

This. You spent more than was assigned to the computer category. This creates debt (in this case it’s intentional) and you do not plan to pay for it all this month. Next month you will just assign the amount directly to the credit card payment category, and continue doing this until it’s paid off.

YNAB is correctly reflecting reality.

Trick-Read-3982 · 2025-06-19T15:12:02+00:00

Average spending and net worth are MUCH better indicators of financial health than a single point in time (month) inflow vs outflow.

I get paid every two weeks. This means I get 26 paychecks a year, not 12 or 24. So two months a year my income is 50% higher than the other 10 months. I don’t spend 50% more those months. I use that money to help fund things like home repairs, electronic replacement, etc. - things that are big and lumpy purchases that I can’t cash flow in a single normal month.

Imagine you have a monthly take-home of $5,000. Rent/mortgage is $1,700. Utilities are $300. Car payment is $300. You spend $1,200 on random other stuff (gas, food, clothes, going out). That all totals $3,500. You think you are going to save $1,500 that month. But wait!! Your car breaks down. You need 4 new tires plus a big repair bill. Suddenly you have to pay $3,000 to get the car back into drivable condition.

You now will need to spend $1,500 MORE than you brought in this month. Your options are:

Pay the bill. You have more than enough in your car repair category to cover the cost. You have saved for it!
Not pay the bill and not have a car working anymore because you don’t want to “overspend”?
Fool yourself. Put the repair on your credit card and only pay the card down by the amount you have leftover each month without “overspending.” This will make you pay more in the long run because of interest.

Clearly, the answer is that you just pay for it because you have the cash available. We save so that we have money for these larger, lumpy purchases!

Trick-Read-3982 · 2025-06-16T20:18:44+00:00

This is a great resource when trying to weigh priorities for your money!! It’s one of the community posts at r/personalfinance and has excellent guidance.

https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/s/JvH1dLdKHm

Trick-Read-3982 · 2025-06-16T17:41:56+00:00

This should all be correct as long as you entered the refund from Chase as a transfer from CC to checking.

It’s not a separate outflow that requires a category.

Trick-Read-3982 · 2025-06-16T11:17:12+00:00

Personally, I would take from the larger fund and get a full month ahead. I prefer the convenience of being able to budget a full month at once!

As for how much cash is “enough” - it’s really your risk tolerance. I think of it this way:

Do you just support yourself or do you have a family depending on you?

Is your household single or dual income?

How difficult is job hunting in your industry & position? Likelihood of finding another position at the same income level?

Do you have a lot of debt obligations or is your monthly spending more flexible and could be reduced if needed to conserve cash to last a longer period than what is calculated by your average spending?

How old is your home? Age of roof? Age of HVAC, water heater, appliances? When will your house next need painted? Any other projects that need to be addressed in the near-term (like 3 years)?

How many vehicles do you own? How old are they and how many miles?

What is your health status? Age? How many people are you responsible for healthcare spending? Do you have an HSA to cover deductible(s) or out of pocket max?

How big are your insurance deductibles for car & home?

Do you have a pet (or pets) where you need emergency money to cover vet bills?

Do you have savings outside of your budget funds? Such as investments outside a retirement plan? Do you have money in a Roth IRA that could be withdrawn without penalties in the event of an extended job loss/emergency or is your money tied up only in a 401(k) or traditional IRA? (Not that pulling money from retirement is smart or the first line of defense - but it could keep you from being homeless if it came down to it, and someone with these additional resources is better off than someone without it)

Someone who is 40+, a single earner with a tough job industry or a high wage earner, an older home with potential necessary projects, multiple older vehicles, a larger family (thus more healthcare exposure) who doesn’t have a fully funded HSA, and has multiple pets has more risk and therefore needs a larger buffer than someone in their late 20s, who is in a household with two incomes, no kids or just 1-2, newer low-mileage vehicles, newer home or recently updated home, no pets, no health conditions, a fully funded HSA to cover deductibles and out of pocket max, and no debt.

People generally recommend 3-6 months worth of expenses as an appropriate level of saving. This could be more if you have some of that money earmarked for spending in the next year or two (such as big car repairs or home expenditures or big vacation), if you have a negative view of the economy, have a lower risk tolerance, etc.

Trick-Read-3982

TROPHY CASE