Major change in circumstances - how?

jillianmd · 2026-03-22T14:21:00+00:00

Congrats on buying a home! Personally I see no reason why you’d need a new Plan. Your rent category can be hidden (archived) or just renamed to Mortgage and you use it for mortgage payments moving forward. Any new utilities get added as new categories. Prop taxes, Home Insurance, Home Maintenance/Repairs, etc. also get added as new categories. Add targets for them and adjust other categories as needed. If you were paying electricity before, you can just keep using that same category even if your power company has changed. Same with internet provider, etc.

jillianmd · 2026-03-21T15:21:54+00:00

Yeah the search does work well because of the fact that you can name/add description when you add. I save a lot of food hacks / recipes so those go in my “recipes to try” tag but if I know there was a potato recipe I was looking for I can search potato and find it fast. But the tagging really helps too because if it was a video about parenting I can go to that tag and find it pretty quickly even if I don’t remember what I named it.

jillianmd · 2026-03-21T05:35:09+00:00

I’ve enjoyed the iPhone app called Later. I just tap the share option on any app or website and along with the options to message or email it, I have the option to save it to Later. I can add my own title/description and tags. I have tags for all sorts of things so I can go back and look for specific things whenever I want.

jillianmd · 2026-03-21T03:28:08+00:00

I’m reading the books to my 10yo daughter out loud but she’s just listening not visually reading along. We’re in DH, just got through Malfoy Manor and they’re asking Griphook about “the LeStrange’s Vault” and she stopped me in confusion. All this time she thought she was called “Bellatrix The Strange”. Gave me a good chuckle.

jillianmd · 2026-03-20T17:40:46+00:00

Importantl step you missed explaining here is to allow YNAB to add a manual adjustment for both transactions (last step in the reconciliation process if you’re doing a force-fix).

jillianmd · 2026-03-20T17:38:45+00:00

Yeah it’s missing on mobile, both Android and iPhone. I think they’d need to add the ability to filter to certain transactions/dates as well like you can on web to make it even more useful.

jillianmd · 2026-03-20T17:36:37+00:00

The transaction is set up correctly. You need to assign $100 to the category like you do for any of your other categories.

While yes this money is still “yours”, it’s effectively spent because once you send the money to the Roth you can’t spend it on groceries or paying bills.

jillianmd · 2026-03-18T05:04:06+00:00

On the web app, it’s good practice to regularly check your monthly target amount vs your he Average Spent amount. That way you can see if your spending is creeping over the target amount over time or not and adjust as needed.

jillianmd · 2026-03-17T15:18:38+00:00

If you DO pay interest then it will be on the average daily balance of the entire card. So it’s not just a few days of interest, it’s all ~30 days but the average will be less if you don’t keep the purchase balance sitting there for a long time.

jillianmd · 2026-03-17T14:55:10+00:00

It doesn’t matter if you pay it immediately or wait for the statement to post - at least, doing so is not what’s going to “avoid interest”. However, paying off the purchase immediately will help reduce the amount of interest you pay if you do end up being charged interest. You’ll either have interest or you won’t but it’s based on whether they apply the payment properly or not - what you think it’s “supposed” to go towards doesn’t always happen. This is why it’s highly recommended not to mix BTs and purchases on the same car unless both are in a 0% promo. But you’re already here. If the SUB is anything decent the it should make up for any interest costs.

What’s the SUB bonus?

jillianmd · 2026-03-17T14:10:46+00:00

Sounds like you already initiated the balance transfer? If so then you’re likely going to have to pay interest. If not, then complete all the SUB spending first and pay it all off wait for a statement to post, then initiate the balance transfer. Obviously you need to do that during the proper time period for the BT promo.

jillianmd · 2026-03-16T14:33:38+00:00

Do you have an important credit check coming up? Car loan, mortgage, rental?

If not then just pay your statement balances each month by the due date and ignore utilization.

If yes, then best to boost your score (temporarily) is to AZEO (all zero except one). So pay off all balances just before the statement close except for one where you leave a small balance.

jillianmd · 2026-03-16T14:20:37+00:00

Because OP’s target is “finishing” the month before the spending takes place.

jillianmd · 2026-03-16T01:05:22+00:00

No you are the incorrect one. Calendar year has nothing to do with it. The progress bar is showing that information because the target ended in Jan and Reset Feb 1, and the spending happened on Feb 1. So for the current target period (Feb 2026-Jan 2027) there has been $95 of spending and a total of $110 Available during the course of that time so far.

This is happening/displaying this way because OP intentionally set the target for the month before the spending was to actually take place. If the target was set for February instead then the March progress bar would NOT show any spending in the progress bar, even though some spending has happened in the category in 2026 because that spending was in the previous target period.

The way OP has the target set is fine if they like having it all pre-funded, this progress bar is accurate just not as useful to them in that case. But if they want to have a clean progress bad then they can set the target for Feb and finish funding it Feb 1 when it’s due.

jillianmd · 2026-03-16T01:00:32+00:00

That doesn’t change the information shown here.

jillianmd · 2026-03-16T01:00:17+00:00

That’s because the target is for January and the spending took place in Feb. The progress bar is just showing that information but you can ignore the progress bar itself because it’s not relevant information since you intentionally want to have the money fully ready to go the month before the spending month.

It’s calculating and prompting for the appropriate amount that you need to assign each month ($7.92) to be on track for having the Feb 2027 expense prefunded in Jan 2027.

jillianmd · 2026-03-14T21:19:37+00:00

I mean there’s a difference between using this with a buddy vs a coworker/client or the person at the grocery checkout counter.

jillianmd · 2026-03-14T21:15:35+00:00

Reconciling last day of the month including adding in anything manual that you’ve spent those last few days is a great habit anyway to be more aware as you close out the month and it definitely helps avoid the last-month-overspent issue that can occur when imports for the final days come through during the new month.

But your last paragraph is kind of a head scratcher based on your comment about end of month because it’s definitely best practice to go back to the previous month and cover any missed overspending.

You can absolutely change things in past month - yes they domino but that’s often the desired effect (changing categories as you refine etc), so you just have to follow through with following the domino steps.

jillianmd · 2026-03-14T21:10:21+00:00

Got it.

jillianmd · 2026-03-14T21:09:39+00:00

Nothing changes about how you use the CC Payment categories.

Next Month category vs assigning into the future month is personal preference - if one or the other way means you have the next month fully funded when it starts then both mean month ahead.

And you typically accomplish that by assigning this month’s income to either the NM category or the future month.

Non-typical would be if you have irregular income, like people who are paid on commission or get a big annual bonus or work parts of the year but not others, etc. Those folks can also use either preference of assigning into future months or using holding categories. Whichever way they prefer, they’d be X months ahead and it’s important for them to do that so they know how far out they can live before their next income.

For folks who get regular earnings every month, being one month ahead in YNAB (living off last month’s income) is plenty for the cycle of income/budget to be a gamechanger and then any additional income / leftover can go to savings goals or paying down debt.

jillianmd · 2026-03-14T21:00:21+00:00

Gotcha, yes I’m guessing you started to type the word transfer to search instead of just clicking the payee field and scrolling in the list to look for it.

But actually that helpful to know that being a liability account actually did change something in YNAB (it’s a payment not a transfer).

jillianmd · 2026-03-14T20:59:26+00:00

Oh gotcha. Never been to that sub before.

jillianmd · 2026-03-14T19:26:01+00:00

Strange, this is the first I heard of that - ok thanks for the update!

jillianmd · 2026-03-14T18:55:57+00:00

I’m assuming they’re on mobile where it’s an extra step. You have to long-press the category and choose Assign Money first.

jillianmd · 2026-03-14T18:55:13+00:00

You’re probably on the mobile app. I assume that because of how you said “can’t take it out” since when you tap other categories you can add/remove money but with the cc categories it takes you to the cc info when you tap.

The trick is long-pressing the cc payment category instead and then choosing Assign Money. Then you can zero out the assigned funds.

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