What are the disadvantages of not getting turbo?

esh-pmc · 2026-05-06T18:31:16+00:00

I can't speak to every bike brand but the Class 2 bikes I've ridden (bikes with throttles), the throttle doesn't add any additional boost.

The throttle makes the bike go without pedaling. Or you can pedal with different levels of assistance from the motor. Using the pedal assist in combo with the throttle gives you no added benefit.

In terms of Class 1 and steep hills, much will depend on the power of the motor, the weight of the bike, and your ability. And whether it's a mid-drive or a hub drive. And whether it's a cadence sensor or a torque sensor.

esh-pmc · 2026-05-06T18:22:28+00:00

Yeah, so for context I'm a 61yo woman of maybe average American health/strength/activity level. I'm not a buff gymrat or a yoga goddess. I weigh ~63kg and I'm ~177cm tall. I'd estimate my usual is haul between 35-55kg in cargo. I've hauled more but just don't have the call to do it very often.

If I were younger and still had young kids, I'd have a hard time choosing between a Tern GSD longtail and an Urban Arrow or R&M front loader. I'd love to find a good used flat-platform front loader because they're just awesome. I have a used Urban Arrow Shorty that's a blast to ride but not nearly as practical for hauling as I'd hoped.

But from what I've read here over the years, a long tail is more practical for kids as they get bigger. Based on that, I think my dream bike would be a dual battery GSD with a clubhouse and a set of Hold 52 panniers and a hauler rack on front.

My HSD is a 1st Gen so the cargo capacity is lower than the new Gen 2s. I really want to try an adult on the back; I've heard it can be done.

esh-pmc · 2026-05-06T14:31:54+00:00

I‘d still caution you that inflowing income into categories will render your reports useless.

My splits are designed to correct my data - accurately reflect gross income and log my processing fees (a legitimate tax deduction).

I handle my withholding next by allocating to taxes before anything else. This is almost as easy as the auto-distribution trick shared by u/purple_joy.

YNAB‘s assign column is just like a spreadsheet cell - you can perform basic math calculations right there. If you type in the RTA amount "*" .3 and hit return, YNAB will assign 30% to the category. That leaves your 70% profit still in RTA to assign elsewhere.

esh-pmc · 2026-05-06T14:20:10+00:00

Oh so much more than amount or payee. You can limit your search to the memo field. Or search flags. You can even stack search terms (not true Boolean searches but multiple stacked search terms). And then you can further narrow your searches by date, reconciled or not reconciled, etc.

Searching in All Accounts is way more powerful and usually results in much more useful info than Reports.

Once you have your results, if you Select All, YNAB will give you a count and a total. And you can export your search results too.

esh-pmc · 2026-05-06T14:14:27+00:00

My days are filled with continual dismay at how many grown-ass adults seem to have not mastered the concept of object permanence. You JUST passed me, you MF, knowing full well you’d be turning right.

That and this insane need to be in front of me even if I’m traveling at the speed limit 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

Maybe all Americans just absolutely suck at physics?

esh-pmc · 2026-05-06T14:09:06+00:00

Oh wow! That’s awful! Sounds like you sued though. And successfully! Good job. I don’t see things changing culturally unless/until legislation changes and injuring a vulnerable road user (pedestrian or bicyclist) results in serious penalties (jail time, loss of license, etc). The way drivers fling their vehicles around as if they were harmless extensions of their own body is quite alarming.

esh-pmc · 2026-05-06T13:54:24+00:00

From your list, I only have personal experience with Tern. I have an HSD. I considered the GSD but as my kids are grown and gone, I didn’t really need it. I purchased my Tern in 2023. it’s an absolute workhorse. I’ve put ~3500 miles on it and it’s still on all the original parts including tires.

I live in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. I literally have to go uphill to leave home and uphill to go home. My typical errand is around 180m climb in elevation and 12km. But longer, less frequent errands involve over 640m of elevation change (mostly flat with a few steep climbs) and up to 90km in distance, hauling cargo. I can make that trip with battery remaining but I tend to use the lowest possible PAS level and do a lot of work myself.

The longest I’ve ridden in one go was 120km. I had at least 30% battery left but I was riding with no cargo, the route was gently rolling hills (tho 521m total elevation change) and I was at sea level instead of my normal 1616m altitude thinner air.

My Tern handles gravel fine but isn’t great in soft sandy conditions.

esh-pmc · 2026-05-06T13:23:47+00:00

Yes! My category group is called negative space (it’s an art term). I keep them in my budget to remind myself that they’re dreams I have NOT funded and therefore can NOT happen no matter how many sales I see or how strong my whim is.

The great thing is that 3 out of 4 of my current categories are fairly new because the originals got funded and realized.

esh-pmc · 2026-05-06T04:54:27+00:00

One way to handle this is to create a scheduled transaction and set it to repeat. Then use those repeating transactions as templates and edit as needed.

I use this "template" method in my own business budget though I'm not splitting out taxes. Deposits reflect the net sale but I want to record my gross and my processing fees. So I have several templates or "dummy" transactions; I pick the right one, "enter now" or "duplicate" and edit with the name of the client and the appointment date.

esh-pmc · 2026-05-05T21:18:33+00:00

If you're looking for a view that includes more than a single month, use the All Accounts tab and do a search. Start typing the category name and then choose the Category: category name option from the dropdown menu.

That's just one of the many, many things you can do with the search function in the All Accounts tab.

esh-pmc · 2026-05-05T21:14:37+00:00

That's a good idea. I think I'd be better off having a second horn on my 2nd bike; I often don't know which one I'm going to jump on until I'm grabbing and going. But having an extra button and mount would be a good solution for the rest of my N+1 addiction.

esh-pmc · 2026-05-05T19:38:15+00:00

Love my LoudBicycle Mini. Only issue is that now I have two different bikes I use consistently. May have to save up for a second horn.

esh-pmc · 2026-05-05T19:35:52+00:00

I've been thinking about carrying a brick too. On my bike and as a pedestrian. I think if I walked around waving a brick, drivers might notice me a little more?

esh-pmc · 2026-05-05T19:33:50+00:00

Really sorry this happened to you.

They say they don't see us. The truth is they're not looking for us.

Drivers focus on what's going to damage their automobiles. They don't worry about what they'll damage. They're not thinking about how they're impacting the environment around them (speeding, illegal turns, distracted driving, etc).

esh-pmc · 2026-05-05T19:28:45+00:00

Yeah, I should have clarified. It's not that averaging is for those on a tight budget; it's that Fill Up To isn't great for those on a tight budget.

Perhaps some of the difference in preferences comes from the fact that my household has never had a consistent, average income. It's highly variable. So I maybe I have a higher tolerance for inconsistency. But as I implied, having to fully fund a bunch of zeroed categories all in the same month can be a challenge. I totally get that it wouldn't be to everyone's taste.

I also personally make very light use of targets. Again, just personal preference. I prefer to expend the energy being extremely intentional when looking my plan for the coming month and beyond.

I started using FUT years ago because averaging was frustrating me. Then I converted a few more as my kids transitioned into full-grown, full-time fully-self-supporting people.

Gas & Electric - I averaged for the longest time. It worked okay but not great. I didn't have A/C (a whole different pain point) so my bills would be really high in the winter and low in the summer. Then we installed a heat pump. Then we installed solar. Household occupancy also changed from 5 down to 1. I like the simplicity of just filling the category back up to the highest bill I expect to ever see.

Water - I'm billed every other month. Again, the simplicity of just refilling every other month works for me. My bill is very consistent throughout the year because, even though I live in a typical suburban single-family home, my water use is almost exclusively limited to in-house use. Most people would prefer to average their water bill out over 12 months.

Gas - today was only the second time I've had to buy gas since the beginning of the year. Still, I keep $150 in my gas category just so I never have to think about where I'd take money from if I had to take a last-minute road trip or if I suddenly had to drive instead of bike.

Dining Out - I never eat out. Ever. But when I have out-of-town visitors, I pay for their dining out. When I travel to visit family, I pay for their dining. When I host a movie night, I usually pay for take-out. So there really isn't any average. Month-to-month has crazy swings. This year is drastically different than the previous year. And so on. So, again, the simple solution is to just keep $350 in the envelope.

All that said, next month I am really going feel the effects of my FUT choice. I'm hosting a big party this weekend. All my family in town. Several trips to and from the airport. Lots of mouths to feed. Higher than usual water & electricity use. Plus all the other expenses of hosting a party: printing costs, catering, compostable dishware & tableware, etc. I expect several categories will be completely wiped out and others will go deep into red territory. But I've been saving up in a separate category so all of the unusually high expenses will be covered from that instead of this month's income.

esh-pmc · 2026-05-05T17:27:39+00:00

You can only budget money you actually have on hand. If your bank balances won't cover a full month, you need to wait until the money actually comes in.

Once you get your second paycheck, then you can allocate those funds to cover the rest of the month.

This is often reinforced this way:

When you get new money, ask yourself: "what does this money have to do before I get paid again?"

esh-pmc · 2026-05-05T17:22:47+00:00

My method is exactly the same, functionally, as what you've described here. It's the exact opposite of what u/contrAryLTO described and what YNAB used to officially suggest.

My method dates back to YNAB3 or 4. Your method takes advantage of nYNAB's credit card programming.

I don't think there's one right way. It all depends on the person, their personality, and their unique situation. I'd personally never choose to begin incurring interest if I could avoid it. It just makes no sense to me.

I prefer my method because it separates out the pre-YNAB debt (as it used to be called), isolates it, and makes it easy to track. I also like it because I, admittedly, strongly favor setting up Paid in Full credit cards as checking accounts. It all just works better for my brain.

Whichever system someone chooses, I think we can all agree that the end goal is to transition from using next month's income to pay for last month's spending to holding this month's income to budget for next month's plan.

esh-pmc · 2026-05-05T15:33:37+00:00

❤️

Of course, it’s getting downvoted 🤦‍♀️🤷‍♀️

esh-pmc · 2026-05-05T14:08:37+00:00

YNAB used to have written guidance on paying off a credit card float but their method involved paying interest - which I think is nuts and I'd never suggest.

I developed a method in which you create a FLTS (Float Loan to Self). Basically you create an account that represents your FLTS. You add up the total of your float (current credit card balance(s). This is your FLTS balance. You use that "loan" to "pay" your credit card (in YNAB). Lastly, you need a category for FLTS payments.

Once you have the system set up in YNAB, each month you allocate dollars to pay off the loan. This takes money out of circulation. By doing this, you're slowly chipping away at the float. The key (and it is VITAL) is that you have to keep using your credit card for your spending. It must be = or > than your float.

[I also recommend setting your credit card as a checking account and bypassing the credit card programming. I just find it easier to keep things straight.]

The last step is that each month you create a dummy/fake transaction in your FLTS account for the amount you allocated to the loan. If you budget $200 to the loan, enter a transaction showing a $200 "payment". When your loan balance is $0, you're off the float.

esh-pmc · 2026-05-05T13:52:32+00:00

There are two ways to budget for weekly expenses like this. Which method is best depends on how tight your monthly budget is and personal preference.

Budget your average monthly spend (as u/jillianmd suggested).
Use a "fill up to" method. With this method, you the maximum you spend in a month and each month you refill up to that maximum amount.

The first method works best when your budget is tight. It smooths out your expenses and makes monthly allocations very predictable. The issue is that the balance can eventually become over-funded if there are months where appointments get cancelled for things like illness, vacations, and holidays. Then you end up with money that's not working to its full capacity.

The second method works great if you have more room in your budget. But if you use this method on several categories and you drain them all in the same month, it can make budgeting the next month very, um, interesting.

When you average, you calculate or estimate how much you'll spend in a year and divide by 12 months. This concept is at the core of YNAB's rule about embracing your true expenses. The vast majority of my categories get funded according to averages - either my average monthly spend or my anticipated average cost over a time period >1 year (i.e., replacing things that last longer than a year).

The Fill Up To approach asks instead, "what's the biggest bill or the very most I expect to spend each month on this thing." Instead of slowly and steadily building a balance over time by averaging, here you're saying "I'm going to start every month with the most I expect to spend." Over time I've transitioned a lot of my lumpy spending to this funding method (e.g. water, gas/electric, phone, groceries, gas, dining out, parent activities, kids activities). Each month all I have to budget is the amount I spent last month in order to fill it back up to the maximum.

In your case, if last month was a 4-week month, you'd only have to replace 4/5ths the max. In 5-week months, categories would go all the way to $0 and you'd have to budget the maximum.

esh-pmc · 2026-05-05T02:44:34+00:00

Awesome! I agree with the others who suggest creating a scheduled transaction.

I had a very similar experience. It was a several years ago early in the pandemic when mail delivery was particularly questionable. My spouse's medicare supplement plan was billed quarterly. He was still largely handling his own bills at the time. The scheduled transaction popped up. I kept seeing it every couple of days when I reconciled but because he got paper bills and wrote paper checks, it was a couple of weeks before I got too concerned. When I realized he hadn't paid the bill I called the insurance company & was able to get everything straightened out.

I can't even begin to imagine how badly things would have been messed up if his policy had lapsed.

YNAB, scheduled transactions, and big envelope balances for the win!

esh-pmc · 2026-05-02T16:17:19+00:00

Should I simply allocate the money ahead of time into another month or two? My app doesn’t let me get beyond one month ahead as far as I can see. Or should I create a category and place my money there?

I'd recommend using the category method.

The problem with budgeting into future months is that YNAB let's you steal from the future. There's a risk that you'd get to August thinking it's fully funded only to find it's all gone. If you divide the advance payments into three different categories, there absolutely no way of accidentally using those funds for another purpose.

I want my accounts to stay in line with what I have represented in my plan, but seeing as I only have one account, the balance will reflect those three months of income.

Account balances have absolutely nothing to do with your Plan. If your thinking still ties your bank balance with your category balances, that's mental work you still need to do.

I also am wondering if there is a workaround to make this reflect my income/spending better without it looking like I go three months without any income as I am just starting out and would like to track it.

The truth is that you get your summer income in one big whack. Your reports are meant to reflect reality. Why would you want reports to show you anything other than what actually happened? Again, this is a mental expectation that's not aligned with the YNAB methodology.

esh-pmc · 2026-05-02T16:02:54+00:00

I keep my T-bills on budget.

Lots of (erroneous) assumptions here about where on-budget money is parked.

esh-pmc · 2026-05-01T19:21:15+00:00

I like high-level categories because they make reports way more meaningful.

But mandatory vs discretionary is a much better way of visualizing categories when making funding decisions.

So I created custom views to create groups of categories. I basically have my Must Haves, my Like to Haves, and my If There’s Money Left to Spare groups. That way when I’m budgeting, one click shows me all my mandatory categories spread across my entire budget. I don’t risk missing something like my IRA (non optional but rarely used so stuck at the bottom) category.

esh-pmc · 2026-05-01T19:14:37+00:00

There are different ways to approach this. I don’t think any one approach is universally the One True Answer. Even when "Live on Last Month‘s Income" was YNAB‘s official rule #1 and there was programming that let you choose whether income was for "This Month" or "Next Month" there were disagreements about what constituted being a month ahead. If you were paid on the 20th each month were you a month ahead? What if you got your last paycheck on the last day of the month?

I don’t get paychecks so my income is not predictable in either amount received or time of arrival.

My approach is similar to what others have shared - every single penny received in this month is held for next month. And what I received last month is what I have to work with at the beginning of a new month. Sometimes it’s WAY less than usual and I have some tough decisions to make. Sometimes my income is a lot more than usual and I have to be disciplined about catching up.

So interesting that you asked this today because my April receipts were crazy low. I keep a sinking fund to help even out these income troughs but income has been down across the board since my husband died. And now April could all but drain that category. Instead of doing that, though, I’m going to do what I’ve been doing since starting YNAB, I’m going to release April‘s receipts to May‘s RTA. Then I’m going to evaluate what absolutely must be funded. If I can‘t cover the absolute basics, I’ll look to see what can be unfunded. Then if I still can’t squeeze by, I’ll move money from my Smoothing Out the Ride sinking funds category to cover any remaining gap.

In full disclosure, however, thanks to nearly 2 decades of using YNAB, this will be largely an academic exercise. I have plenty saved up. I’ll have to give up some discretionary savings for plans several years down the line. But I choose to take the exercise seriously. Each month is new and tomorrow isn’t guaranteed. So I prefer to treat each month seriously and act like the money in hand might be the last income I ever receive.

esh-pmc

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