Ben - Oops, meant "overpromise / underdeliver" in #3.

Hi Turquoise Mask !

The Budgeted column shows how much you've set aside for a particular category in the current month. When you increase the Budgeted amount, the Available amount goes up as well. There isn't a way to add funds to the Budgeted column without increasing the Available amount because that would mean the math in your budget is incorrect.

Is there a certain reason you're looking for that option? There may be a better way to accomplish what you're aiming for here. :)

Faness with Mvelopes, say you have $30, for gas, left over in your envelope, from December. When I fund January's envelope with $130 I would have a total of $160 to spend. Maybe that's how YNAB will work after I use it more than one month. I suppose just starting out this month in YNAB I would fund the gas budget with $160, correct?

Turquoise Mask 

Hi , I have only been using it for a bit more than 2 weeks, but for example in my fuel category I had $5 left not spent in December and when I added $25 to start January it said my available was $30 so I think it's working the way you would like.  

Turquoise Mask That's exactly right and exactly how it works! If you have $30 left over at the end of the month, then you'll only need to budget $130 to bring it back up to $160. Once the month rolls over, you should see things start to fall in place. :)

Turquoise Mask  I am in the same boat. I've been using mvelopes for a little over a year. It has helped me a ton with managing my money, I was awful about it before. But you are so right, the website is so clunky. The interface could be improved drastically and I feel like it sticks a lot. My biggest issue right now is my checking account has not been linked for over a week. I submitted a ticket, followed by an email and finally a phone call, where I ended up leaving a message. No one has contacted me to fix it! So here I am with every thing fully linked to ynab but its challenging to switch to the ynab method. I really liked the funding plan concept but I find I am not making as much progress as I'd like. We will see what happens after 34 days on ynab I guess! Hope you are successful.

Tomato Banjo please sign up for the classes. I skipped those,  tried to teach myself, but understanding the thinking behind the 4 rules is important. 

Ben K. Thanks. I definitely would like to do that. Hopefully the classes are a little more straight forward. I found some of the youtube videos to be more confusing because of the long winded analogies. If you have any courses you recommend let me know!

Tomato Banjo I've taken like 8 of them. The best part is you get to ask questions, ask early so your not at the end of the list. I don't think there's a best one.  The major hurdle, I was close to a mvelopes user long story, was the change in thinking. Good luck! 

Turquoise Mask version 5 of Mvelopes actually seems worse than v4 to me.  The big graphics like blocks take up so much screen space that you can't even get a good picuture of things.  

Rita W. I found Nick True’s videos on YouTube really helpful for getting started.

Ozarkham each category in YNAB is an envelope. It is your job to figure out how to distribute your income into your various envelopes. But you can only distribute the money you actually have. It is like the original envelope system when people would cash their paychecks and sit down with a pile of envelopes and divvy it all out until there was no more money on the table. 

  Ozarkham , your perception is off. YNAB is a zero sum based envelope budgeting system. First come, first served? No, you decide what your priorities are and how to divide up your income into categories (envelopes). And if you don’t get it quite right on your first try? Move funds from one category to another. (Rule 3, Roll with the Punches.) Relax and give it some time. You will learn to love it. There is no better way to maximize your income.

Just Joan  since my last post I’ve become a real YNAB fan, especially their mobile app which is awesome. I will tell you I had to rearrange my thinking. My wife and I get paid twice a month. With Mvelopes I divided every bill in half and funded the envelopes accordingly. I kept on trying to force YNAB to do this and finally came to the conclusion it doesn’t do it that way. I then laid out my bills by date due. Putting that date in the category name really helps. I then fund only the bills due in that pay cycle. Money left over goes into the categories in the next cycle. That’s about as far as I’ve gotten.

Changing my budgeting approach gave me a lot of anxiety at first.  The term “budgeted” kept on tripping me up. I see it more of an allocation as it deals with present and not really the future. The goals section really helps seeing where you’re headed and is the real compass to the program.  but YNAB method so far has given me more control over my immediate money and where i want to be in the future which is a good feeling. 

Ozarkham  that’s a great idea!  I saw a different category name hack to add your monthly planned to the name so you can see if you end up moving money because you spent more.   

I’ve got the app too, and like it so far.  I’m looking forward to when I can spend a few hours on this later in the week. 

Ozarkham I just listened to the Budgeting workshop on YouTube and that answered a lot of questions. I saw that date-in-the-category idea in action!  

I’m definitely switching.  I can see how user friendly this is (and which other workshops I need to listen to). Just need to sort out getting my data from Mvelopes. 

Hi Just Joan  — you said you‘re used to taking your monthly spending plan (i.e. budget) and planning that out...  Me too!  I’ve been using YNAB effectively  just a few months now...  But as others have said, YNAB is about cash in hand...  I was struggling with this concept and found a tip somewhere on the forum that i started using...  One of YNAB‘s strengths seems to be flexibility in making the process our own.

I get paid bi-weekly so the dates never align with the month. Here‘s how I‘m getting my full monthly income into YNAB, even before I‘m paid, to budget the full months expenses:

     - I setup a new budget category:  Paychecks Expected

    - on the 1st of the month, I add up my paychecks coming in and enter that as a negative amount...  Warning: This budget category will always be red / over-budget to the extent of future income and so I always have the message, 1 category over-budget. 

    - this drives my TBB (to be budgeted) up to cover all income for the month

    - i budget until TBB is zero and my month‘s spending is covered.   (Income Expected remains red/over-budget at the total amount of all my paychecks in the coming month)

  - when i get paid, the income goes to the Income Expected category rather than TBB.  So after the last paycheck, Income Expected is now also at zero. 

I found i had to take this super slow to get my head around this, but now that it‘s in place I‘m comfortable with knowing i have the month covered. For sure this is a process - I‘m thinking that at some point in the future (a year out?) my finances will be such that I don‘t need to do this...  but for now, this is where I‘m at...  

Good luck! :-)

Alice Blue Sidewinder this suggestion means you can never trust your category balance in YNAB as they are backed by money you don’t have so you run the risk of overdrafting. It also means all of your reports are incorrect as you are inflowing money straight to a category and not TBB. 

satcook  you‘re right -  I do have to purposefully spend only what‘s in my Accounts, not my Budget.  It also means I can‘t budget months ahead — but I need to learn patience, go slowly, budget a month and let it happen for now anyways...  my money aging is in days during these baby-step budgeting days. 

 As for the reporting - there‘s no spend reporting in the app anyways. So that option’s not available to me...  (I don‘t have a PC and only work on the app — I‘ve entered feature requests for the app to reconcile and provide spend reporting. I truly don‘t get why they think people have to be dependent on a PC in this day and age.  And I’m not about to go spend money on a laptop just so i can budget. The browser on iPad forces you into the app - sigh of disappointment)

I do think that in the future I‘ll be transitioning away from this, but this is what i need for now...  It made me waaaaaay too nervous to not be able to plan the month...  So when i saw someone else doing this, it made sense for me. For the first time, I feel like I have control over my money...  The priority for me in these baby-step budgeting days is to plan the month out.  I suspect that once my debt is paid off and my money starts aging, I‘ll be able to let this go. For now, this is what I need...  

Thanks for the callouts...  

Alice Blue Sidewinder  I might suggest having two budgets if you feel the need to hold on to fake income to see the whole month. That way you can use the YNAB method in one budget, and harness the power of using your categories to guide your spending, but still see your whole plan laid out in another budget that you can switch to with just a click or two. 

The category spending is why YNAB is so killer. Dragging out the expected income/slap myself for being bad kind of budget just delays your ability to experience the level of success you’ll have using the method. 

Alice Blue Sidewinder That is a great idea!

Just Joan Now that you've been importing, I'm not sure.  If you open a new account and set the "opening balance" date to 12/31/18, it'll import everything since then.  You'll have to go through and re-categorize everything though.

Hi Just Joan !

We don't suggest going too far into the past, but you can import those past transactions.

After linking an account, if you decide to import past transactions (since the first of the month, for example) you can change the date of the starting balance transaction. You will also need to adjust the amount of the starting balance.

Let me know if you have any other questions, I'm happy to help! :)

Faness  and  TheTabby thank you for your input on this.  I wouldn't mind doing this because it would give me a complete calendar year for 2019.  I'm relieved to know it's possible! 

Purple Snow Yes, I was just wondering if Mvelopes will survive, after the mass exodus with the introduction of v5. I was reading the reviews, in the Apple App Store, and people are just disgusted with Mvelopes right now. Hope they can turn it around!

Hi Purple Snow !

Welcome to YNAB! :)

The best intro to the YNAB method is the Learn the Four Rules workshop. YNAB’s Four Rules are at the heart of everything we do. With those in mind, I think it'll help turn your Mvelopes way of thinking. :)

Turquoise Mask 

It's such a shame what they've done to Mvelopes.  I've been a happy Lifetime Member for a long time and just started using YNAB yesterday.  I like the interface and the fact that some of the things that they took away in V5 are here.   But, the basic envelope system is what I liked about Mvelopes and having been using it via software or paper for many years.

We'll see if I end up staying after the trial period us up.  But, at this point, I'm just very frustrated with Mvelopes and what they did to it after all of these years.

Orange Yeti btw, I'm 4 mth user coming from the grandfather or maybe great grandfather of Mvelopes, called Crown Money Map Financial Software. 

Orange Yeti A few thoughts:

Age of Money is... intriguing.  I'll give you that.  I'm afraid I don't find it to be particularly useful though.  Maybe I just don't understand what it's for though.  Okay, ignore this paragraph, it has no purpose.

Roll with the Punches is permission to adjust to things as they happen, because sooner or later, life happens, and you have to adjust something.  Think of it as institutionalized grace for the fact that you don't have future sight and therefore can't actually plan for every single thing the time that it actually happens.

Your frustration with your monthly funding goals and your wish for tracking of inter-category transfers are actually linked together.  Because YNAB doesn't track inter-category transfers, it doesn't realize that you DID fully fund your Thingamabobs category before you moved some of the extra over to Widgets.

Personally, I got annoyed enough with categories turning orange for little to no reason (by which I specifically mean because I didn't meet the monthly funding goals, or I did, but then moved money later in the month) I've removed all of my monthly funding goals.  The only ones I use are target amount and target amount by date.

TheTabby I agree with your analysis,  which is why I'm considering removing the funding goals myself.   I'm toying with the idea of just using recurring transactions as a guide for monthly funding. 

Ben Khaki Storm It's not the TBB number that's the issue, it's that the category I move money from is now no longer fully funded according to my goal, even though I'm ONLY moving the excess that rolled over from the previous month. 

Orange Yeti Because the goal criterion is "monthly funding goal", and if you move money out of that category, you're reducing the amount of money you've funded for the month. It makes sense to me.

Orange Yeti I have a chrome extension called Toolkit for YNAB enabled, and one of the options I use colors the "unmet goal" bubbles blue instead of orange. It is less stressful that way. I already know I changed my mind about that goal, so orange is an excessively strong warning color to use on it 🙂

adriana01 I do agree on that point, and use that myself.

bevocat I don't get it, because I did already fund for the month.  What I'm trying to move is the excess money.  

adriana01 It doesn't seem like changing the color should be necessary, because I already met the goal, I just want to use the excess elsewhere.

Orange Yeti By moving the money you have no longer met the goal, and that's what YNAB is telling you.

Orange Yeti  It sounds like you want a "fund x a month until the balance is y", but all YNAB offers is "fund x a month", "fund enough to get to y by date" and "target balance y". These goals don't fit all circumstances, so we've learned to either live with the color or find a different way to track how much we want to budget to a category each month. 

adriana01 Thanks for the perspective.  I guess I'm trying to put a round peg in a square goal (chuckle).  I'm considering forgoing the goals altogether, since it seems to complicate things.  

adriana01 People have been asking for that goal type to be added for 3+ years.

Orange Yeti The work-around I use is to move the money in the previous month. Then I don't have the underfunded signal staring at me. So if my monthly funding goal for groceries is $400 and at the end of March I have $42 left in the category, I move the money in March then fund $400 at the beginning of April. The way YNAB does the math on a monthly funding goal is based on the amount budgeted (far left column) not the category balance (right column)

nolesrule I know, I'm one of them who has submitted it (probably multiple times....that form is a black hole) :)

lebdavidson2 It doesn't matter.  It'll still be there... waiting. (bonus points for anybody who gets that reference)

Orange Yeti yep, that happens too

bevocat I understand that the money is there either way. But if I do the moving around in the previous month, the warnings show in the previous month. That way I can work with my current month and not see the "underfunded" color coding. 

lebdavidson2 Oh, I know, and I like your idea very much! I'll probably use it myself, should the occasion call for it.

jenmas I still don't understand because that $25 was carried forward from the previous month.  I funded the $100.  Now I should be able to do whatever with that $25.  

Orange Yeti - the only way you can move money out of a category is to enter a negative amount in the budget column (left column) - this is what happens even if you use the move money tool and don't touch the left column. So even if you budgeted 0 this month, if want to reduce the available balance by 25, you must enter -25 in the left column (granted if you use the move money tool, all you do is say move $25 to Category X, but YNAB does this by entering -25 in the left column).

jenmas I think the fog is starting to clear now.  I expect the money to be debited from the available column, but it's actually coming from the budgeted column.  Even understanding that, it seems counter intuitive.  Totally opposite to what I would expect.  

Orange Yeti They are, in fact, linked. You decrease the amount in the available column by subtracting it from the budgeted column.  If you add money to the budgeted column, the reverse is true, and you will see the available column has increased.

bevocat I guess what I didn't expect is that adjusting the budgeted amount is the ONLY way to update the available column.  

Orange Yeti It isn't. Spending activity modifies the available column without touching the budgeted column.

bevocat moving money also affects the available column. 

Example you had $50 roll over in a category and you budget an extra $100. You now have $150 available. If you decide to move that $50 to another category, it will lower your available to $100 while leaving your budget at $100 as well.

Captain Taniele No. That is not correct. When you do the move money, it will lower your available to $100 and lower your budgeted amount to $50, just as I said above. I just did it again to verify.

Adding/removing money to/from your budgeted column adjusts your available column. Adding/removing money to/from your available column via the move money tool adjusts your budgeted column.

Spending transactions (or returns categorized to the spending category) affect the available column, but not the budgeted column.

bevocat said:
Spending activity modifies the available column without touching the budgeted column.

bevocat Yes, but that's not in the context of the "roll with the punches" adjustments we are talking about here.

lebdavidson2 thanks - that seems to work, except now it says I didn't fully fund the previous month.  *sigh*.  

Orange Yeti  That's the expected behavior. The goal function is not as sophisticated as you imagine it is. It is not at all tied to what you have spent. A monthly funding goal is not at all related to what total amount you have in the category. If the number budgeted this month (left column) is less than your goal number, the program gives you a warning. I prefer to stick the warning in the previous month so I don't have to look at it in my day-to-day budget work. 

lebdavidson2  Yeah, I'm starting to understand money moves from the budgeted column, not the available balance per category.  It's counter intuitive, but I understand. 

Bruce Yeah, I would love to have that feature back.  But there are soo many other frustrating things about Mvelopes, and v5 just tipped me over.  YNAB comes highly recommended, so I'm going all in.  

Orange Yeti Yes, V5 is what pushed me over the edge too. It's been a couple months now, and I've never looked back. I'm totally loving YNAB.

Bruce I would also like to see the history of moving money from one category to another and did submit a feature request for it.   But, compared to all the things now missing from Mvelopes V5 that is a minor concern at this point.

Rick as a follow on, I've not seen any way to trace reconciliation adjustments in YNAB. 

Ben Khaki Storm While you can't trace the movement of money between categories, you can search for balance adjustments in your accounts to see any changes made when reconciling. :)

Faness That's good to know.

sgarelick I'm with you.  It's only been a few days and I can't see going back.  Mvelopes now feels and looks clunky.  It's also much slower and still missing major functions that it used to have.  

I with that I hadn't become a lifetime member but never would I have imagined that they would have messed it up as badly as they have done.

Rick totally agree. Really sad because I was a huge evangelist for mvelopes over the years. They screwed up big time. 

sgarelick Same here - I've been recommending it for years in classes and individually.  I cannot do that now.  I would like to know what took place in the planning meetings when they decided to take so much functionality out of well-working program.

Rick It sounds like they really screwed up badly. We've seen a max exodus away from Mvelopes in these parts since the change.

Superbone which should be a big message to ynab, listen to your users or they will find something else. 

Ben Khaki Storm Most definitely.

Ben Khaki Storm Very true - and a lesson to be learned for the competition.  It's a shame what happened to Mvelopes as they had a very good product.  It would be a good (but sad) case study for an MBA class.

jamesx4 Welcome! (From one software engineer to another. 🙂) I've been using YNAB steadily since 2010 (first bought it in 2008 but that's another story) and it has been a life changer. You'll find the forum here is really friendly if you have any questions.

Forest Green Stallion this is the closest you'll get - https://www.youneedabudget.com/up-next/

sgarelick I've left mine just sitting there. I haven't touched it in the three months or so since I've joined YNAB, but like you said, there's no charge, so it won't hurt anything. Personally, though, i doubt I'll ever go back. I saw the shortcut to Mvelopes on my browser, and realized I have absolutely no desire to click it and see what, if anything is different.

Bruce Same here - a Lifetime member with no plan to go back.  I found myself dreading logging on and using V5.  With YNAB, the "chore" of keeping up with things is so much easier and less burdensome.  I'll keep my account.  Who knows, maybe someday there will be V6 which will amaze us all.

Beige Griffin I've abandoned it as a lost cause.  I don't think I've even logged into Mvelopes in the slightly more than a year's time that I've been here.  I don't think the information would be all that helpful.  I suppose going through to see what True Expenses to expect coming up based on your history, but other than that, I don't see any need for the data.

Jason Roysdon Ally's buckets are superfluous and unneeded with YNAB and I'd guess the same with Mvelopes too. The categories already do that job. You're just giving yourself extra working trying to match up buckets to categories.

Superbone - Yes and no.  I use the buckets like escrow accounts.  Yes, I have a category for each of the items in that bucket, but the bucket still has a high-level purpose (real estate escrow items, vehicle items, education items).  This gives a non-Mvelopes/non-YNAB user who has been granted financial POA and/or an estate executor a much easier time to take over my finances should the need arise.