
What (in your opinion) is your weirdest/most unique budget category?
I thought of this question last night as I was adding a "$2 Bill" line to my Savings category. I end up with $2 bills more frequently than expected; I don't like to spend them, but they're still income, so I wanted a category to reflect that!
What are some of your weird, wacky, and wonderful category names?
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I have two kind of unusual categories (they don't have exciting names, though): "Stupidity/Laziness" and "Language Bonus".
"Stupidity/Laziness" is for things like library fines and late fees and parking or speeding tickets -- basically things that I could have avoided if I'd been more on top of things.
I read somewhere that knowing a second language -- in my case French -- is supposed to increase your earnings by 2.3%, so I put 2.3% of my net income in my "Language Bonus" category.
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I have one called "All things eye related", have a visually impaired child, is amazing the amount of random eye stuff that is needed or random specialists he needs to see about this that and the other. I say as I type of my large font keyboard, which , as you can guess, was put into "All things eye related" when we bought it.
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Loony Fund - my administrative catch-all. I use it for minor WAMing, to record all the pass-throughs, one-offs, never-do's, expenses for others and the repayments, bank fees, customs, duty, fees for currency exchange, penalties, fines.......
It's a play on words: Luny for lunatic or stupid (i.e. stupid tax) and Loonie, the common name for the Canadian $1 coin (which has a loon on it). At the end of every month, I like to trim up my categories so that the amount rolling over is a round number, factor of $5, with no cents, so I trim off the $1.37 and $4.12 and $0.17 from each category and put it in my -- you guessed it -- Loony Fund.
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powerwordbudget
I don't have a $2 bill category, but I do have a $5 Project in my payee names. The $5 bill is the smallest paper currency in Canada (everything smaller is a coin). When I reconcile my wallet, I pull out the $5 bills, record a transaction using the payee $5 project, categorized to my Loony Fund, and tuck the $5s into an envelope in my cash stash. It's remarkable how quickly they multiply.
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For the name part- "Pamper Me" (hair dye, etc), "Doctor, Doctor, Give me the news" (medical expenses), "Give it away now" (charity), "Can't Touch This" (emergency savings), "Who Needs A Budget?" (ynab annual fee ;)), "Gadgets & gizmos a-plenty" (electronics & tech/media stuff), "The Taste of Ink" (tattoo savings fund), "Did I do that?" (miscellaneous spending)............ I could go on for days hahaha
I don't think I have any super random categories right now, though I do have one specific for my 3 favourite days in the year (Boas Festas!, St. Patrick's Parade, Thanksgiving breakfast). -
My “Digital Loonie Bin”. In Canada $1 coins are called “Loonies” because they have a loon on one side. I used to collect them and put them in a jar. I do this digitally now and set it up as a category in YNAB. When I fund expense categories I always round them up to the nearest $5. For example , my cell phone costs me $52.50 a month so I fund it as $55. When I pay my cell phone bill I’ll have $2.50 left over which gets moved to the “Loonie Bin”. I have a “Splurges” category with items like Eating Out, Take Out, iTunes, Kindle Books set-up as non-funded sub-categories. When I want to purchase something in my Splurges category the rule is that I can only make such purchases with money in my Lonnie Bin. Nothing in the Loonie Bin = No splurges until there is. Works great for controlling those types of impulse purchases!
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"Down with the Sickness" is the category I use for all the extra spending that happens when we are sick. Especially when my husband is in the hospital. He's been diagnosed with a complicated and progressive disorder that has resulted in 4 hospital stays in the last 2 years. There is so much extra eating out during those times. If we are not prepared for the stay it can also result in an extra walmart run for neccessities. We live an hour away from our preferred hospital so sometimes it's easier to just run to walmart to get some toiletries then wait to bring stuff up from the house the next day. I also use this category when I'm stuck at Walmart waiting on medication half in delirium and end up purchasing a new heating pad for $60. 🤐 To be fair that wrap is the best $60 I have spent in years.
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I'm super-challenged by budgeting and sticking to it, so I give my category groups/categories positive names.
Affordable Monthly (= regular monthly payments)
Easy to Keep to (= variable monthly spending)
Abundant Funds (= True Expenses)
Safe and Secure Fund (= Emergency Fund)
Savings Snowflakes (= change jar)
Savings Snowball (when the snowflake balance reaches £1 it gets moved to here).
But now I've read this thread I want to rename the Fun category. Hmmm... Toy Boys and Cocktails has a certain ring to it, but actually Plant Pots and Library Reservation Fees would be more truthful.
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I have ‘Things that I don’t know what they are’. Which literally means just that.
When I joined YNAB a couple of months ago my finances were so messy I genuinely required that category.
Interestingly I just realised today that I already stopped using it. For example yesterday I had a ‘thing I didn’t know what it was’ so I just called Amazon, asked (kindle unlimited- I forgot about it) , cancelled it and got a refund for the payment.
I should probably put that story in the YNAB Wins forum. 😊
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I've mainly got fun names for my categories:
My Four Walls - Main household bills
Wheels on the Bus - All vehicle related stuff
Fill our Bellies - All food related stuff
Pride and Policies - Insurance related (house, life, rrsp, resp)
Choose Kind - Church, gifts, random giving
Dragging Me Down - bank and interest fees