Jeremy Dent What are you trying to analyze?

YNAB is an envelope system - receive money, put it in an envelope (category) based on your priorities (what obligations do I have before my next income event? What future expenses do I know I need to prepare for?) until To Be Budgeted reaches zero. Stop. Spend money based on the category available balances. When you receive new income, repeat.

Silver Robot When we overspend a budget Category item, there doesn't seem to be a way of itemising this Category on the panel on the right so that we see what items have caused the overspend.

Silver Robot Our big numbers at the top just don't make sense. Maybe we've tagged some figures incorrectly or categorised things wrong. We have multiple income sources at different times of the month and two of us using YNAB.

Jeremy Dent The only number at the top that matters is To Be Budgeted. Make that $0 and use category balances for guidance. Check balances BEFORE spending and take from lower priority categories when needed. If there no lower priorities when the category is short, then don't make that purchase.

Edit: your incoming money should be categorized as Inflow:To Be Budgeted. The only inflows that should not be categorized as TBB are for returns, rebates, refunds, or reimbursements.

dakinemaui Sorry, I can't make sense of what you say based on our entries. For some of our income, I can't find a relevant category. We are both paid quite well and yet there is s huge budgeting deficit. Mayhem!

Silver Robot Still bewildered but working on it. Our budgeting is over £2,000 out. A couple of hundred I could understand...

Jeremy Dent said:
For some of our income, I can't find a relevant category.

Again, for all income outside of those few "R" exceptions (returns, etc.) the relevant category is Inflow:To Be Budgeted.

The fundamental premise of YNAB is to make a plan when you get money, use the plan to guide spending, and possibly revise the plan when you realize it could be improved. Repeat. The To Be Budgeted (TBB) number will be $0 when your plan includes all the money you possess. All the other numbers are details that can be ignored since you are using the bottom-line number (TBB).

Silver Robot 

Silver Robot said:
I feel like I've been tracking my expenses and WAMming left, right and center but without direction. 

 You shouldn't be tracking or WAMing. Find the money first: if you need to spend, pull from another category first. Even if it's one you'd rather not WAM from. You don't even need to do much other than that: check the category, move money first. This is the blogpost about that: 

https://www.youneedabudget.com/find-the-money-first

If you are diligent even for a short while about spending from your categories and recording the spending as it happens, it will build the muscle of spending within your means, no matter how small your means are. 

WordTenor What does WAM mean?

Jeremy Dent "Whack a Mole." It's a term invented by one of the masters of the YNAB method, Patzer, who has unfortunately passed away. It means to move money from one category to another to cover either overspending after you've spent, or moving money before you spend, because it can be like the arcade game--you fix category A but now you have to fix category B. Technically we also use WAM to mean moving money before you spend, also. But when I'm saying "you shouldn't be WAMing" I mean, "Don't wait until you have a bunch of overspending to move money." 

Silver Robot said:
Do I get a month ahead and not worry about my debt for a while (just don't add to it and keep paying the minimums), do I pay the debt, then focus on getting a month ahead?  Do I build an emergency fund first?  Do I do a bit on all three at the same time? 

Depends on how much your debt is and how risk-averse you are. Big debt? Maybe refinance it and pay it down aggressively. Not that much debt? Perhaps getting a month ahead will help you avoid future debt.

To me, getting a month ahead and building a small emergency fund (maybe $1,000 or a few hundred $) are essentially the same thing. I would even put more onus on getting a month ahead, because you know how that money is going to work for you.

Building a proper emergency fund (3-6 months worth of expenses) is a big ask when you have other things going on, so I would put that on the back burner until you have the first two things figured out.

If you have increased your income and still feel you're paycheck-to-paycheck, then essentially your income-to-expense ratio is probably still high. I'm not a fan of doing things like the 34-day reset because it doesn't speak to your priorities. In order to spend with awareness and make an affordable, happy lifestyle for yourself, you'll need to make sustainable changes. Only you can review your expenses and categories from the past year and ask yourself, "How important is this thing to me? If I reduce this or eliminate it completely, will I be fine or will it shatter me?" When I was paying down debt, I reviewed every single expense, monthly payment, and annual subscription, and was surprised to find how many things I actually didn't care that much about.

There are a lot of things we spend money on that we take for granted. I've found Mr. Money Mustache to be a helpful resource. He can sound a bit intense, but an outsider perspective can be useful to just look at things with fresh eyes:

https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/02/22/getting-rich-from-zero-to-hero-in-one-blog-post/

WordTenor Thanks.

WordTenor I didn't know that Patzer had passed away. How long ago was that (approximately)?

Katejo I believe it may have been spring/summer of 2019 (or at least that's when we found out).

jenmas Thanks Jenmas

Silver Robot I read someone here say, pick a focus, any focus. That helped me a lot. I picked my EF first. Then I got more comfortable with that and picked my debt as a focus. I just paid off my debt and now my focus is building up more for true expenses. I write down my focus under each month's name and maintain the focus until I feel like switching. But having ONE focus works better for me than all the focuses. So I can make some headway, somewhere at least.

Ivory Storm sounds good! I might copy that.

Ivory Storm I think I need to be a little more focused too.  Thanks for the reminder.  I've been at this for almost 2 years now, but I was looking at the next couple of months and at least based on goals and scheduled transactions, the underfunded quick budget is requiring more than my money expected to be coming in.  I think I've got too many goals for too many TEs.  I need to focus on one, get it built up, and move on to another.

Silver Robot Here are two specific workflows that I recommend for getting ahead as well as staying ahead. The second one is optimized for "getting ahead" which has an obvious and quantitative measure of progress. The first approach is a bit more efficient for the case where you're able to push all income into next month.

Salmon Storm Yep, gotta stop the bleeding. I would address the known True Expenses immediately after the monthly expenses.

I would also get a month ahead (budget all income in next month's area) before growing an emergency fund. (Being ahead is useful NOW, while the EF is only useful in the event of an emergency. It's also a simple matter to use the "getting ahead" funds if the emergency couldn't be covered by taking from other current-month categories.)

Where does consumer debt reduction fit in? Like anything, it should depend on the value (benefit vs. cost). Being a month ahead has a cost when you have interest-bearing debt (because you could have sent that money to the CC instead of holding on to it). You're effectively buying the increased clarity and convenience that comes with being ahead.

What's the cost? It varies from case to case. Ballpark it as 0.083 * Interest Rate * sum of expenses occurring between your first check and the end of the month. For 20% APR, and $500 in expenses paid AFTER the first check is received, the cost of being a month ahead is about 8 bucks a month. Personal call if the benefits are worth paying that.