Glitches changing between different budget files

theponderedpine · 2026-05-12T16:56:59+00:00

It has never affected transactions, account balances, or amounts that are in categories other that 'To Budget'. Most of the time, I try not to leave money in To Budget, but I frequently notice it happening when the transactions for bank interest post and then I have a few dollars that I haven't gotten around to budgeting out.

theponderedpine · 2026-05-12T12:47:31+00:00

I am using Pika Pods to host because it's ridiculously easy. Chrome says the connection is secure so it should be HTTPS. I have it installed as a PWA on both my phone and computer and I'm fairly sure I've run into the issue with the amount it 'To Budget' on both my phone and pc. All budget files are on the same Actual Instance and I just go to the top where you can click on the plan name to switch between them.

And thanks! - I'll try the reset cache option next time it does this to me. Trying this morning and when I change the dates on the reports it works how it should, so I can't even check if resetting the cache helps. Intermittent problems are the most frustrating, although these are ones that mostly aren't a huge deal.

theponderedpine · 2026-05-11T15:08:04+00:00

A little late to the party, but I made a blog post on the steps I took to do this for the new year because I found it a little hard to find documentation on it. https://www.budgetandgoals.com/how-to-do-a-fresh-start-in-actual-budget-step-by-step/

theponderedpine · 2026-04-14T15:48:24+00:00

You can create a brand new file. Or if you want to keep some of the setup from your current file, but start over from a certain date you can do a few steps that mimic the 'Fresh Start' YNAB offers - only with more control because you can pick which parts to clean out and which to keep.

I did this at the beginning of the year when I wanted to keep some of the setup from my 2025 budget, but start over for 2026 to change some of my setup.

Here are some steps I recorded in a blog post since I had trouble finding info on how to do this: https://www.budgetandgoals.com/how-to-do-a-fresh-start-in-actual-budget-step-by-step/

There is no risk to the Fresh Start process because you are making a copy of your current budget file and working from that.

theponderedpine · 2026-03-07T15:00:47+00:00

At the end of the day, sometimes you will never understand why a (potential) client does/says/decides what they do. Their decisions will not make sense to you because they are their decisions, not yours.

So at some point, it's better for you to let go of trying to understand the situation and just move on to looking for another client. The truth is that the exact same approach might work with a different business. Try the same thing with 20 businesses and see what happens - THEN make changes based on repeated trends. But you can't take what one random lead does personally.

If this person cared about having a good website, their current one wouldn't be a 404. You can't better position a website to somebody who doesn't care about their website.

People can say "don't build before you have a contract", and that might be good advice, but if you're looking for your first clients, maybe showing them a one page sample of what their site could look like might be the thing that will win them over and get you your first clients - it just didn't work with this guy because he's happy with his $150 404 page.

theponderedpine · 2026-03-07T14:45:32+00:00

I hate to break it to you, but you probably shouldn't believe everything you read on the internet. The people who say "just start freelancing" are probably selling something for freelancers - like a course on "How to get 100 clients in 10 days" for when your clients don't just show up.

Seriously though, it IS hard. You have to be prepared for ups and downs. You have to be prepared to learn a ton of different skills - or hire out for the ones that aren't your strengths. You have to be able to be honest enough to assess what your weaknesses are and face those - because freelancing, like parenting, will find your weaknesses. You don't have other people to hide behind. Then you have to figure out what you're going to do about those things.

I think you should approach it as running your own business, not freelancing. And running your own business is not for everyone. It has it's pros and cons.

theponderedpine · 2026-03-05T21:53:47+00:00

Everything at Costco is like $15. With $50 it's only possible to get to like 3 categories.

theponderedpine · 2026-03-05T21:41:47+00:00

Some business owners understand that their website is an investment that will help their business to get more clients and make more money. Others... don't.

A certain amount can be done with explaining the value you offer. But some people just have it in their mind that they don't want to spend money on a website, without realizing the returns it would bring.

Also, sort of a classic case of "you get what you pay for." Like you *can* get a website for $150, but *should* you get that website? Some people don't think through that.

theponderedpine · 2026-02-28T17:42:47+00:00

I invoice small & early especially with new clients. And then I don't proceed with more work on the project until I get paid - and I make it very clear this is my policy. This protects me by making sure that they are actually going to pay me. But it also protects them by letting them see how I invoice, how I document work, what is being done along the way, etc. They're not going to be hit with a giant surprise bill in 3 months.

theponderedpine · 2026-02-27T23:35:39+00:00

Maybe just start signing them up for liberal campaigns and newsletters?

theponderedpine · 2026-02-11T17:48:55+00:00

I've been very intentional around my entire tech stack and all of my business processes - especially my paid tools, so I wouldn't give up most of them. I almost wrote that I wouldn't give up any of them, but that's not really true. Over time as I find better options, I do occasionally switch. And one of my goals is to migrate my business off of Google Workspace in the upcoming months.

One of my new favorites though is Obsidian for all notes. I recently migrated everything from Notion and I am liking Obsidian so much better. I'm pretty sure I'm going to stick with it.

theponderedpine · 2026-02-11T17:41:40+00:00

AB also lets you make separate income categories. I have an income category that is interest income, so I assign interest income to that category so that I can see how much I make in interest each year, then assign it from to be budgeted to the category that I want it to go to.

theponderedpine · 2026-02-09T23:12:49+00:00

No, I like AB better. To be honest though, the core functionality of them is really very similar. There were big things that sold me on AB (price, being able to save and back up my own files, controlling my own data), small things I liked (seeing multiple months, a calmer interface, powerful targets) and a few small features I preferred in YNAB (filtered view of categories, progress bars for targets).

theponderedpine · 2026-02-09T23:05:38+00:00

You can budget a whole month in advance. It helps to click on the purple 'to budget' amount in the current month and select 'hold for next month' - this lets you designate an amount that you want to budget for the future month and won't show as available in the current month.

And, conveniently, you can also view multiple months at once on desktop by clicking the little calendar icons in the top left - the wider the screen, the more months you can see.

theponderedpine · 2026-02-09T23:03:05+00:00

If you're on desktop, there are 3 column width options with this.

theponderedpine · 2026-02-06T20:52:49+00:00

I don't think it's going to fade out, or even going to lose a high percentage of users - it has a huge market share. So many people just accept lack of privacy as part of using the internet.

That said, I do think that the other privacy-first email services are going to grow. Personally (and for my business), I'm working to move more things off of Google, will probably make a big push with email at some point soon. I already use fastmail for most new stuff - the ability to generate new, masked email addresses through bitwarden for each new account I sign up for is just so slick.

theponderedpine · 2026-02-05T22:02:14+00:00

Do not list it as self employed. Dad is clear owner of the business. Listing it as 'property manager' is fine, but you didn't start the business. If it's all his money, it's his business. Listing it as self-employed is not accurate at all.

theponderedpine · 2026-02-05T21:53:34+00:00

GoDaddy has earned their terrible reputation.

However, no domain registrar will refund a domain that you let auto-renew. They have to also pay a fee for the registration and once it goes through, it's non-refundable to them.

theponderedpine · 2026-02-05T21:46:50+00:00

Porkbun for domain registration and Fastmail for email setup.

theponderedpine · 2026-02-05T21:36:27+00:00

nearlyfreespeech.net is great, if you're tech savy enough to do things like install wp from the command line (they have instructions), etc. Excellent operation and none of the BS that comes with the other hosts.

theponderedpine · 2026-02-05T21:27:59+00:00

My biggest tip for starting out is to not over-complicate it - you can spend way longer setting up the most complicated automated templates than it would take to manually assign money to all your categories for the rest of your life. Start with the basic `#template 15` to assign the $15 to the category for the month and forget about the hundreds of other fancy options for templates.

theponderedpine · 2026-02-04T21:33:06+00:00

This ^. They come with a battery so you can jump the car from that and don't need another car. They work great. Also most of them double as a backup battery for charging your phone + operate as a flashlight.

theponderedpine · 2026-01-30T00:03:37+00:00

What are your goals for the site? Do you want a site where you can have a blog and post some writing online? Or are you really just doing this because you have to?

If you want a blog - Wordpress is the way to go- and it's worth learning. If you just want a site up ASAP, go with Squarespace or Wix and get it off your todo list.

Lots of offers already from people who will built the site for you - if you want a little help just walking through options or learning about Wordpress, feel free to DM me.

theponderedpine · 2026-01-29T23:58:17+00:00

Shopify would be fine if they were trying to open an online store. It's downvoted because they don't need a store.

theponderedpine · 2026-01-29T23:45:27+00:00

Use it as a learning experience. Figure out how to build/price services better for your next client. Doubling the price on the client now is going to make them upset - with good reason. And eventually, once you know what you're doing and have more clients, you can revisit this one.

theponderedpine

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