
Thinking about leaving YNAB
My husband and I have been active YNAB users for more than five years. We finally switched to the new version after our computer died a couple months ago.
I'm not afraid of a challenge, and have spent hours and hours trying to learn and love this new version.
But it just doesn't seem to be working for how we use YNAB. It's very tedious now, and I dread doing our budget. I used to love budgeting and looked forward to our YNAB sessions.
Now I'm confused, frustrated and annoyed, frankly. For the amount of work I'm putting in each week, I might as well use a pencil and paper ledger for our budgets.
I think it may be a result of the way we organize our accounts and budget. We have three checking accounts and three savings accounts -- that's a personal checking/savings each, and our join checking/savings. And, we have three credit cards that are joint, but used for individual purchased. The old YNAB made it easy to organize all of these random transactions. On its surface, the new YNAB seemed like it would be fine. But the automatic credit card payment category (while logical, in theory) messes me up every time. And the savings accounts as budget accounts (again, while much more practical, in theory), is making it tedious to balance budgets because I need to calculate combined totals constantly.
Anyone else experience the same problems? Has anyone overcome this tough transition to the new program? Any tips on how to do that?
We've paid for the full year, so I'll probably see it through until our subscription runs out. But I just can't see myself using this program anymore. It's now a chore.
Any advice is much welcome. I really loved the control YNAB gave us over our finances and would like to find a way to make it continue to work for us.
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Why not just go back to YNAB4? I experienced all of the issues (and more) that you are seeing when I tried the new one 2 years ago. It just did not work for me. I've tried it again recently and the magic is just not there. I'm happily using 4 and don't plan to change. Is there a reason you don't want to use 4?
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Hi, JD Gil
I maintain 33 on-budget and tracking accounts. It isn't that different from YNAB4 except the cc methodology.
I simply could not make the cc methodology work for me. It made me so very angry, I would be crying in frustration. I pay my 2 cc accounts in full on the second last day of each month so that I can start each month owing nothing to no one. I buy gift cards and transfer from cc to gc accounts. I see these accounts as transactional or convenient flow-through accounts. nYNAB wants me to immediately acknowledge I am taking on debt the moment I use them. I finally gave up trying to use the nYNAB cc methodology. To say it made me angry is deliberately understating just how crazed it made me.
I defined my two cc accounts as chequing accounts. This allows me to use the YNAB4 cc methodology. As a bonus, it also removed the credit card payment box, which gave me back the top third of my computer screen. That too was a significant relief. Having solved the cc roadblock, I am giving nYNAB the next three months of accurate entry, giving myself the chance to embrace new methods and see how they work for me without further work-around.
blondeambition posted a link to where you can download YNAB4 and look up your activation key if you didn't save it somewhere. I keep a copy of the YNAB4.exe file and a jpeg of my activation code in my DropBox file. I also keep a jpeg of my mother's activation code and my sister's as well. I have reloaded their computers and replacement computers a few times with YNAB4, activated with their codes, and reloaded their existing budgets (resident on DropBox) and saved the day triumphantly.
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How did you have savings accounts set up in YNAB4? There’s been no change as to how nYNAB handles savings account. If you had them as off-budget, they’re now called tracking accounts.
In terms of credit cards, what is tripping you up specifically? The key for PIF credit cards is to budget the outstanding balance for the first month only. After that, when you use a credit card for spending, it automatically deducts the amount from the category, and makes that amount available for the credit card payment.
I would also suggest contacting support directly (as well as asking questions here!). I’ve heard they can send you videos specifically for your questions.
We have about 15 accounts (mix of checking, savings, credit cards, investments, and car loans) with nYNAB with no issues. There are some differences with nYNAB, but the core principals are the same.
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Yeah, I have 42 on-budget accounts, so I don't think the number of accounts causes problems. Some of them are credit cards (1 of which I'm about to stop paying in full for a few months, but don't anticipate problems), one's savings bonds, some are savings, some are checking, some are gift cards and cash, and I have also had a couple of loans which I've since paid off. I'm also curious about what is causing the difficulties with the original poster.
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+1 on setting up the CCs as savings accounts. The current method (and the immovable CC payment categories at the top of the budget screen) annoyed the hell out of me so much when I first signed up.
I created a savings account for each CC, moved my transactions from the CC account to the savings ones, then deleted the the CC accounts. I don't think I'd still be using nYNAB now if not for that workaround.
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Another option, I'm not sure how much carry-over there is between your "personal" money and your "joint" money, is to create separate budgets for each. I'm currently running two. One is "my" money and one is "our" money. DW doesn't want to run a budget, so she just knows that I pull $X from her account every Monday after she gets paid which covers the fixed expenses, and the rest is hers to play with.
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VanillaCottage said:
Why not just go back to YNAB4? I experienced all of the issues (and more) that you are seeing when I tried the new one 2 years ago. It just did not work for me. I've tried it again recently and the magic is just not there. I'm happily using 4 and don't plan to change. Is there a reason you don't want to use 4?I too tried nYNAB when it first came out. Was not impressed and stuck with YNAB4. I agree with VanillaCottage that it's easy enough to just continuing using YNAB4.
I've been using YNAB since it was an excel spreadsheet. I revisit the forums periodically to get a ping on nYNAB. This yet again confirms that YNAB4 is still superior. I won't be moving to nYNAB anytime soon.
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I think sometimes we just have to admit that we are better off sometimes with the old version. I've looked at the new fancy thing multiple times but I've come to the conclusion that there is just to much added work doing things in nyab compared to version 4. I've got a workflow that works and I'm comfortable with so why change, especially when its now an subscription with the added tedium it introduces.
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JD Gil said:
We have three checking accounts and three savings accounts -- that's a personal checking/savings each, and our join checking/savings. And, we have three credit cards that are joint, but used for individual purchased.This is why I don't do all of this. Personally I like to make things simple when it comes to budgeting. I have one checking account and one savings account. I use those for everything. I have credit cards but they are shared again to make it easy. I know everyone has a preference. I just don't understand having multiple accounts like this. Though I have been tempted to create a new checking account that has say my mortgage payment in it.
JD Gil said:
But the automatic credit card payment category (while logical, in theory) messes me up every time.Yeah I am not a fan of this at all. Honestly I just ignore it and pay my credit card as I see fit (Paid in full).
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JD Gil, ynaber2613, and isang:
Setting up a credit card as an account, sounds interesting.
So how does this work in your budget?
You spend on your credit card (which is set up as a checking account), do you just show negative in that account? How does this work with your categories?
For Example: Say you've got a zero balance on your CC (set up as a checking account). Your Gift category has $0 budgeted. You buy a gift for someone for $100. You categorise it as a Gift (for budget purposes). The account shoes -$100. The category goes down to -$100. Won't this "steal" from next month's budget?
I'm not crazy about the way CCs work in nYNAB, so I'd be open to a workable alternative that is more like YNAB 4.
Thanks for any info.
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JollyBugeteer said:
You spend on your credit card (which is set up as a checking account), do you just show negative in that account? How does this work with your categories?
For Example: Say you've got a zero balance on your CC (set up as a checking account). Your Gift category has $0 budgeted. You buy a gift for someone for $100. You categorise it as a Gift (for budget purposes). The account shoes -$100. The category goes down to -$100.This is not a problem with your cc account being negative - it's a problem in the way you are using your categories. Whether it's a CC set up as a checking or set up as a CC, you should always budget money to your categories before you spend. So if your gift category has $0 budgeted, you need to move money into it from another category (either before or after your transaction, but preferably before). So when you spend, the account shows -$100, the outflow shows -$100, and the category balance should show $0 (not -$100). It is okay for your CC account to be negative (as that is what they are in real life), but the YNAB way is to budget for ALL expenses with money you already have. The CC is just a method of payment. YNAB(4) showed me how to get out of debt, not how to create more and stay there.
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JD Gil, Katejo, isang, and VanillaCottage: Thanks for your comments. I get what you each are saying, but the difference is that in YNAB 4, you can turn on the red arrow to account for the negative category until you paid the CC in the following month (I too pay it off monthly). You could always move money from another category, but I preferred the red arrow.
I'll think about trying this method. It might work better.
Thanks again.
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Thanks for all the feedback. Based on the advice here, I got set up again with YNAB4.
It has been smooth sailing since.
I know our budget is a little complex, and considered for a moment trying to simplify in order to keep using YNAB. But YNAB4 caused zero complications, and I like how we have everything set up in separate accounts, so I decided to just return to what worked for our budget system.
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This has been a very interesting conversation for me to follow as a new YNABer. We started in mid January and have a bit of credit card debt we are working to pay down....why we stumbled onto YNAB in the first place. I can see the benefit of the "checking account cc" method for PIF users and hopefully we will be there by the end of this year. But for those of us with a debt paydown plan I like the nYNAB way of budgeting additional payments as it is helping us keep track of our $1600/month we pay towards credit cards using the snowball method.
Sounds like the YNAB 4 method works great for some of you, just keep in mind that many rookie YNABers come here with preexisting debt and that the designers of nYNAB may have to tailor to new users as well as PIF budget ninjas.
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I think the issue with the way nYNAB handles credit cards comes down to a misunderstanding between spending on the card and spending on the card which is covered by the budget. Spending on the credit card is outside the budget, with the payment category showing what is available in the budget to put towards the debt. The payment category and the credit card balance are not referring to the same information.
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I've found credit card easy in nYNAB, just need follow some basic rules:
Say I have a £1000 CC paying £10 interest per month
1. Create a separate budget for credit card interest. Ensure this is always funded with the £10 interest charges expected during the month. When you debit the interest charge to the CC account, nYNAB will move it to available for payment. New balance £1010 and £10 available for payment.
2. Enter an amount that want to reduce the card debt by during the month into the CC budget, say £50 to reduce £1000 balance to £950. Payment available is now £60 made up of your reduction amount (£50) plus interest (£10) in total, all covered by the budget. £1010 - £60 = Balance £950 when you make payment.
3. If you also use your card during the month for purchases, nYNAB will move the money to the payment amount from the original budget. Say I spend £200 on fuel on the card, balance is now £1210. The available for payment will now be £260 made of the £50 I typed into the budget, £10 interest and £200 moved by YNAB = £260 available to pay off. So £1210 - £260 = Balance £950 when you make payment.
The amount you actually type into the budget for CC payment is the actual reduction in debt that will occur that month. The available for payment consists of this reduction, the interest and the spending.
Just enter into the budget how much you want to reduce the card debt by. And that can be £0 if you want and your CC balance will stay static that month. Just make sure your spend amount plus interest covers the minimum payment in this case, if not, top up to minimum by entering into budget amount. You will reduce debt by this amount.
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Late to the discussion but I am in the 'treat credit cards as checking accounts' camp too. I tried for over a year to use the new credit card methodology but it often frustrated the heck out of me. The straw that broke the camels back for me was when I made a cash purchase in a category that I had previously made a credit card purchase in and it caused the category to go orange instead of red when I overspent the category in cash. I pay my credit cards off multiple times per month, basically treat them like debit cards. In this particular instance the credit card balance was zero and the category was green. I made a cash purchase in the category which was more than I had available in that category, I expected the category to go red indicating cash over spending which is actually the case here but YNAB assumed it was credit overspending and turned the category orange.
YNAB's fidelity is not good enough to handle this case, it must calculate the credit card spending on monthly basis, not a real time basis. YNAB should have known that I had already paid the credit card off and that the over spending was in cash.
Changing the CC accounts to checking has simplified YNAB and now all over spending is red and under funding is yellow. I liked the way YNAB 4 handled them and this is how I treat them now.
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Seems to me that you might benefit from a little simplification. Your account structure looks a little “high maintenance” to me. I started with 2 checking accounts and 5 savings accounts, some set-up “on budget” and others as off-budget “tracking” accounts. I now have only one “on-budget” checking account with the others set-up as categories within that account. Super simple. Easy peasy.
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