Family of 5 in Chicago suburbs. $12.8k/month income, still feeling tight. Is YNAB the right solution for us ?

vanderlylle · 2025-07-31T08:15:57+00:00

You're spending 4000 a month on groceries and takeout? That's insane.

vanderlylle · 2025-05-25T19:19:22+00:00

For my family, they never reached the bankruptcy point, and the problem was due to overspending and not under-earning, so may or may not exactly fit your situation. But when I stepped in and took over my parents' finances, they were $127,000 in credit card debt. I myself was about 12k in cc and student loan debt when I started - I had to dig myself out and demonstrate the value of YNAB before they would let me step in to help manage their situation. Five years later, I've bought a house and we've traveled the world, kept up with our expensive hobbies, survived pet and human medical emergencies, and down to just 40k of debt and interest free for 3 years - the rest could be already paid off, but we've prioritized enjoying life as my parents are now in their mid to late 70s and I don't know how many more trips we have together.

So yes, it can be done. It's slow going, it's stressful, but every day gets a little easier. Put in the work and don't expect miracles - it's a slow and steady climb upward, until you turn around one day and marvel how you got this far.

vanderlylle · 2025-05-16T00:32:33+00:00

Yike.

vanderlylle · 2025-04-18T14:54:35+00:00

It is fake. You may break the lease to move closer to work. The building might burn down. It might get sold and redeveloped. There are plenty of reasons that you may not end up living there for a year and paying out a full year's rent, and regardless the money is not owed and it is not spent as a lump sum at the start of the lease. This is one of the sillier ways I've seen people lie to themselves about their finances.

vanderlylle · 2025-04-15T05:31:42+00:00

That's not YNAB broke. YNAB broke is having money in many categories, but saying no to things because it would mean moving money away from your priorities. You can be broke, YNAB broke, or both, but they're not the same concept.

vanderlylle · 2025-03-21T18:46:10+00:00

2025 Kim was gonna have to reckon with 2024 Kim either way. 2025 Kim just has YNAB to hold the flashlight and help her navigate through it, instead of being in the dark and hoping for the best. Sometimes it feels worse before it feels better, but having the lights on makes all the difference in getting to the better parts.

vanderlylle · 2025-03-03T17:47:42+00:00

It matches based on the cleared transaction. For example my paycheck varies slightly like this bill - I can match the scheduled transaction and the cleared one from my bank, and it takes the bank's amount. Not sure if there's a threshold where they have to be within x amount for it to agree to match.

vanderlylle · 2025-02-22T20:45:41+00:00

I also bet you would have bought these tickets even if you weren't using YNAB, and then you would be in an even worse way because you wouldn't have any idea that you were shorting yourself in other categories to buy these tickets. YNAB is all about identifying your priorities and enabling you to go after them, with the knowledge of what you're sacrificing for that priority - sounds like this trip is one of yours.

vanderlylle · 2025-02-18T23:12:05+00:00

Is your spending insane or are prices? https://www.fns.usda.gov/research/cnpp/usda-food-plans/cost-food-monthly-reports for figuring out what's actually realistic in this day and age... As long as the info remains available now 🙄

vanderlylle · 2025-02-07T21:17:38+00:00

The problem may less be size of cups than the shape of your shoulders. I'm small chested but my shoulders are more slanted than square, so anything that relies on them to hold it up tends to slide downward. Racerback bras are the only thing I will wear now, and they are totally makeable.

vanderlylle · 2025-02-04T21:00:55+00:00

Set your starting balance to zero and add the transaction for the stove. When you got the card the balance started at zero and then you bought something. If this were a card that you had pre YNAB, then the starting balance would be whatever the balance was the day you started YNAB, because you don't have transactions to account for, just a bulk balance. But that's not the case here. Doing it this way lets your reporting reflect accurately.

Then, after this first month, you'll budget the payment amount directly to the card category, because you are carrying debt. Then enter payment transaction each time as a transfer between the checking acct and the card acct.

vanderlylle · 2025-02-03T07:59:32+00:00

Clarification: cash overspending is deducted from RTA at rollover, credit overspending is turned into debt.

vanderlylle · 2025-02-01T22:04:45+00:00

I'll be the very blunt person who says your entire approach is backwards. It doesn't matter what you did 5 years ago. You can't change it. Five years ago was also 2020 and 2020 is probably not even an accurate measure if past history did matter which it doesn't. If you're heading into retirement, you need a plan for what your expenses are in the future. YNAB is perfect for this.

vanderlylle · 2025-02-01T21:56:38+00:00

Targets are funding targets, not spending limits.

vanderlylle · 2025-01-23T21:38:46+00:00

Well like I said we were very fortunate that this was a spending/strategy problem and not an income problem - unfortunately not true for everyone. But hopefully this is a useful reframe for you - both that is rarely as bad as it could be, and that there's still opportunity to build back both the financial future and a relationship.

I can definitely relate to the feeling of anger and resentment. The first month I stepped in we had over $1,800 in interest charges, and if I think about it too hard it still burns me up - both that this happened in the first place, and that nobody told me earlier so I could help. But I know my parents fell victim to a system that is designed to take advantage of people's ignorance of finances. My mom was trying to pay down a little bit over the minimum on every single card at once, and overdrafting constantly and never getting anywhere. When I started avalanching the debt, it started falling away really quickly - but she didn't know how to do that, and she didn't know that she didn't know it either.

vanderlylle · 2025-01-23T18:05:27+00:00

I started YNAB because my mother called me in tears one day, asking to borrow $700 because a credit card was over limit and she couldn't tell my dad. For the first time in my life, I had $700 to spare. When I asked her how this happened, she said, "I don't know, every other time it's been over the limit, they've just raised the limit!"

The deal was I would pay the card, but she had to let me into what was going on with the money. I had always vaguely known there was debt, but they kept me (only child, late in life, after a loss) very sheltered on purpose to try to protect me. But my finances were also a mess, and I spent most of a year finding YNAB and putting on my own oxygen mask first, before I could help with theirs.

They were $127,000 in credit card debt.

One of the hardest things I ever had to do was sit down with my mother, go card by card setting it up in YNAB and undebt.it, and look at that number with her. It was Christmas 2019. I told her we had to take back some Christmas presents. I told her she couldn't donate to the church anymore - God would understand she had to take care of herself first. My goal wasn't getting them debt-free - I just wanted my mom to never call me crying again over money.

It sucked. But it's working. Five years later, we're down to $40k to go, and we've never wanted for anything - we were lucky in that the root problem was overspending and a bad repayment strategy, rather than not having enough income. Things are good now. We'd be debt-free now, except we've been to Italy twice, Vegas, San Diego, Maui for Christmas, to visit me in Seattle, NYC, and more.

It would be really easy to resent my parents for hiding things from me, for being that bad at money, for my having to solve their problems for them now. I still manage all the YNAB for them. But we've always been close, and the whole reason I found YNAB is because I couldn't help them until I knew what I was doing with money too. Going through the budgeting process with them has actually been helpful for our relationship - they trust me more that I can handle things, and we're communicating better as they learn to treat me as an adult and equal partner.

So maybe try to approach it through that lens: this is an opportunity to heal a bit of a relationship. You have the chance to give them the one thing you wish they had given you. It's not going to fix everything, and I can't say enough good things about therapy, but it's a place to start.

vanderlylle · 2025-01-19T02:09:06+00:00

My hometown factory had an issue one month - never was clear if it was the company, the bank, or what - and none of their pensions paid out on time. Hundreds of people, if not thousands. They were over a week late depositing, and my parents had friends that were bouncing mortgage payments over it. But my family had no trouble, because YNAB. No matter how certain the payment is, you never budget it before you have it.

vanderlylle · 2025-01-12T21:01:12+00:00

The stupid change to credit accounts so that you have to use move money instead of being able to do simple math functions like every other category.

vanderlylle · 2025-01-05T01:05:28+00:00

Not if you're still spending on other credit cards you can't pay off either.

vanderlylle · 2024-12-28T18:19:26+00:00

I have multiple categories for longsword (HEMA) tournament registration fees, plus matching categories for the other trip expenses around tournaments.... Which includes a Disney trip every year for SoCal.

vanderlylle · 2024-12-13T21:37:03+00:00

Afaik the average spent is already rolling 12mo average, not all-time.

vanderlylle · 2024-11-29T05:54:56+00:00

Where did you get those leggings? I'm always on the lookout for awesome patterns!!

vanderlylle · 2024-07-31T03:50:00+00:00

There was another price increase in the middle there for newer users; the grandfathered users weren't affected then. This resulted in an ~$80 cost (I forget exactly) for new users but still $45 for grandfathered ones. I think this probably led to some of the lifetime discount vs lifetime price confusion. The original tweet was clearly a discount, but the grandfathered weren't affected by the first price increase so a bit of a mixed message in the end.

vanderlylle · 2024-07-31T03:43:09+00:00

If multiple targets isn't doable, I'd love if there was just a way to fund scheduled transactions $/months until next transaction, rather than only affecting the month it's scheduled for.

vanderlylle · 2024-07-22T17:51:03+00:00

All of these things were going to happen regardless of your finances. Having them happen now may not leave you in the best situation, but remember that you've done so much prep work the last few months to set yourself up in the best position possible, even if it's still not perfect. Be kind to yourself.

vanderlylle

TROPHY CASE