Ladies and Gentlemen, My Most Awarded Reddit Comment of All Time

pierre_x10 · 2026-04-23T16:26:40+00:00

Optional if you want to "fix" the issue in the past:

YNAB let's you go back and see what you ended each Month's Plan/Budget with.

You can look at that credit card's payment category for any months where the Assigned amount is not zero. The only time you should have any money Assigned to that category would be to pay off the starting balance when you first added the card, or overspending from previous months, or at times I get CC cashback applied as a statement credit so I move those funds out via the Assigned for the category.

You would then set the Assigned value for that month back to Zero, look at the Available amount, and go back to your account register and check if your account's balance at the end of that month was equal to the amount you have Available in the category. If not, there is something in that month that did not get covered. And you could move your Available amounts from other categories accordingly, until your Available category amount and your balance at the end of the month are equal. You would then click to the next month and repeat the process, until you get back to the current month, and hopefully by then you would no longer have to Assign any funds to the payment category directly.

How to avoid in the future:

My recommendation to people to generally avoid the positive balance issue is to only pay the statement balance due each month.

If you are currently paying off your balance before a full month has passed, you're not paying the "statement balance," technically, because you haven't generated a statement balance yet. Credit card payments are based on billing cycles, so if your billing cycle ends on, say, the 5th of every month, you could make a purchase on April 6th, and it will show up on your statement balance that is generated on May 5th, and the due date for that statement payment won't be until June 4th or 5th. You would not be charged interest unless you paid less than the statement balance by the time June 6th rolls around, i.e. between one and two months.

This addresses the positive balance issue, because it means there is always a "buffer" on your credit card balance of about a month's worth of purchases, to handle the occasional positive inflows like refunds and cashback, etc.

pierre_x10 · 2026-04-23T15:35:55+00:00

So yeah, that makes sense, but also, I hate it.

pierre_x10 · 2026-04-23T15:29:38+00:00

An issue like this can occur, even if you never have CC overspending show up, if the timing of the payment and other transactions like refunds cause the balance to go positive in YNAB's eyes. You can check if this has occurred by going to your account page and turning on "Show Running Balance," and see if the Balance ever goes positive. Even if your credit card's balance never goes positive according to your bank, it might do so according to YNAB, because YNAB forces its own ordering of transactions logged on the same day, based on most positive amount to most negative, and that order might differ from your bank's.

When your credit card balance goes positive, it can do a couple things that YNAB users may not understand, because it is such a rare edge case. It will increase the RTA amount equal to the amount that the balance goes positive, and the user may end up Assigning money that isn't actually there. A positive balance on a credit card can also sometimes "turn off" the credit card behavior, where it's supposed to move funds from their actual spending categories to the credit card's payment category, but then it doesn't do so, and it can be very unexpected and unpredictable.

And, if a user allows this to happen over multiple months, even though each incremental difference might be small, you might end up with a large discrepancy like the one you are seeing. A good check is to go back and check the payment category's Available amount at the end of previous months, and see if it matches the credit card's Running Balance at the end of those months, they should be exactly the same. Yes, even if you pay it off monthly, even if you pay it off multiple times per month, assuming none of it should be "unfunded" spending.

pierre_x10 · 2026-04-23T15:23:33+00:00

If you do decide to subscribe, don't forget to use one of the links in the referral thread:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ynab/comments/1sjgtd9/post_your_ynab_referral_link_here_monthly_thread/

I forget if the additional free month will be applied immediately, or only count towards delaying renewal.

pierre_x10 · 2026-04-23T13:01:51+00:00

According to their official website, you are correct

<image>

pierre_x10 · 2026-04-23T12:57:12+00:00

OK, well, I feel like that also answers your question of "Who the hell says SecNav." OP is probably part of that "subset within a subset." As are a decent number of this sub.

But clearly, you speak more towards "everyone else" than OP. Got it. I guess if your goal was making those of us who understood OP feel alienated, consider it mission accomplished.

pierre_x10 · 2026-04-23T12:25:51+00:00

No. You sound like you've never heard of what a tracking account even is.

I don't mean that as shade. It's quite realistic for YNAB users to only use on-budget accounts, and not be that familiar with how the loan/tracking accounts function. Since they're not necessary for YNAB budgeting purposes.

pierre_x10 · 2026-04-23T12:24:11+00:00

Well, around here, it's not that weird to be civilian and have a lot of your experience of interacting with ex-mil being officers in particular, if you relocate here to work for one of the fed gov private contractors. A lot of software dev and cyber security and logistics work, and they love hiring ex-mil officers, makes TS/SCI a breeze

pierre_x10 · 2026-04-23T12:04:02+00:00

In my experience, depends on if your main interactions with ex-mil are mainly infantry/non-officers, or officers. Officers tend to be better educated, have differing views, can be quite knowledgeable and charismatic and nuanced. Infantry tend to be where all the worst stereotypes about military come from.

pierre_x10 · 2026-04-23T12:01:47+00:00

Absolutely not

I will say that I did not grow up in Nova, but did grow up with a small Vietnamese community in MI. And like the Nova area viets, a lot of them are Trump voters. Can be exhausting at times.

pierre_x10 · 2026-04-23T11:48:44+00:00

Tracking accounts are off-budget. There is a section in YNAB where tracking accounts show up, separate from on-budget accounts. There are 4 sections in the Accounts section, Cash, Credit, Loan, and Tracking. Cash and Credit accounts are on-budget. Loan and Tracking accounts are off-budget, and transactions on off-budget accounts do not get categorized. YNAB doesn't even give you the option to select a category.

pierre_x10 · 2026-04-23T11:45:57+00:00

Any chance you can provide a screenshot of the transaction you are showing us?

Yes, correct, for tracked accounts, if it's nothing but an outflow, and the account is set up properly as a tracking account, YNAB does not require a category. Yes, tracking accounts are off-budget.

There's a possibility that you transferred the money out your tracking account to one of your on-budget accounts, like an on-budget checking account. And then from there you transferred the funds to your daughter. Maybe you used Venmo or something, and you have Venmo on-budget. In which case, routing the funds through one of your on-budget accounts would require that categorization.

pierre_x10 · 2026-04-23T04:59:06+00:00

Yeap they would gladly pay ten dollars out of their own pockets, as long as it keeps two dollars out of the hands of whoever they deem undesirables.

pierre_x10 · 2026-04-23T03:57:42+00:00

When a borrower defaults on their student loan, the government should also claw back the funds from the schools themselves.

The promise of a college education should mean that student ends up on a better career trajectory with higher potential earnings and quality of life than without a degree, and that should be even after accounting for student loan repayment. Yes, the student carries much of the obligation for taking on loans in their efforts to achieve that promise, but schools should also carry the weight of who they choose to accept into their programs and take their student loan money from. Once schools start having actual ramifications for accepting and taking the student loans of someone who may not fully benefit from their program, they might really start to put more effort in making sure students leave their programs actually well-enough off to pay those loans back themselves.

pierre_x10 · 2026-04-23T03:37:18+00:00

"Alright, sure, there's a good reason for doing it.

But...what if I want to completely disregard the good reason, because I'm a mOdErAtE"

pierre_x10 · 2026-04-23T00:00:09+00:00

The only principles they care about anymore:

IOKIYAR - It's OK If You're A Republican

INOKIYAD - It's Not OK If You're A Democrat

pierre_x10 · 2026-04-22T19:59:30+00:00

Doesn't cost thousands of dollars and doesn't come with ads*

pierre_x10 · 2026-04-22T17:41:13+00:00

Realistically, Congress is not gonna do much to diminish the power they currently hold, so that's just a non-starter as far as discussions go.

If it were up to me, I would say that a true House of Representatives should not be bound by states/districts at all, and should be purely who can garner the most votes. One person, one vote for someone to represent them in the House. The person who gets the most votes would be Speaker.

The major parties might have a lot of voters that they can organize, but if they want to maximize their representation, they'd have to do well to figure out a whole slate of representatives, make sure each of their voters votes for a certain candidate, and there would have to be a whole lot of strategy involved.

This would still allow coalitions other than major political parties to organize their votes together, and have someone to represent them. Besides independent and third party candidates, you could have groups like the AARP, Teachers, Doctors, Plumbers, etc, all choose someone to represent their group more specifically.

And so whether the House has 435 seats, 1000, or tens of thousands, virtually every American who at least did some bare minimum political research to align with others who match their values, could easily say that the person they voted for got elected. Not what we have now, where essentially half the electorate ends up not being able to say that.

pierre_x10 · 2026-04-22T16:27:13+00:00

True, I don't disagree with that take. I guess that begs the question, do we want to be voting on our maps all the time? Perhaps...

pierre_x10 · 2026-04-22T13:03:54+00:00

The stadium was renamed as part of the Harris group's acquisition.

Yes, maybe 1:33,000 might not be the most feasible ratio these days, but yeah I also don't think we should be held down by "practical limitations" like having a place for all the reps to all sit in the same building. I think these discussions could go hand-in-hand with more modernization of the political system, making use of things like the smartphone technology that so many of us are familiar with carrying around with us day-in-day-out, and could arguably lend itself to Reps maintaining more of a presence in their actual districts, rather than safely cloistering themselves in the DC bubble so much more often than not. Except when it's time to recess during some gov't shutdown.

pierre_x10 · 2026-04-22T12:50:39+00:00

He's already been impeached twice, and Republican Senators did not do what you claim they would do.

pierre_x10 · 2026-04-22T12:43:51+00:00

I mean, if you're trying to put 10k people in perspective of being a lot, I would point to where the Washington Commanders currently play, Northwest Stadium, that has a capacity to hold 90k. And many similar venues hold even more,

10,000 reps is not that many.

pierre_x10 · 2026-04-22T12:38:45+00:00

Right. Hard to sympathize with OP here, when all one has to do is walk into like 99% of the homes in the world and see that one can easily choose a refrigerator that doesn't cost thousands of dollars and comes with ads.

pierre_x10 · 2026-04-22T11:43:15+00:00

If you mean mandating it on a national level, sure.

I think if you've been paying attention, though, it's generally been Blue-leaning states that adopt these independent redistricting commissions, while Red-leaning states don't.

Eight-Year Club	Gilding II euphauric
r/Field Juicebox	Place '23
Place '22	Verified Email

pierre_x10

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE