gte037p If your e-fund money is in a no-risk vehicle that is at least pacing inflation/CPI, I would consider it already adequately invested. Even if you invested your e-fund in 100% stocks with a 10-year long bull market, you are likely going to only double your money in that 10 years. If your e-fund is $10,000 and you double it to $20,000 in 10 years, you've only made $10,000 profit. You could match that by getting a part-time/gig job that pays only $20/week, which is low-effort, zero risk, and guaranteed return.

If you DON'T see a bull market, but in fact see a recession the day after you go all in on stocks with your e-fund, you could be down for a decade before seeing any return on your investment.

So it seems like there probably isn't a lot of benefit to going all in, that money likely isn't really hurting you much by sitting at the ready. 

EclecticActor It's your choice of course but the subject issue can be easily achieved in nYNAB with a couple extra steps.

Ivory Crab You can create an Income For Next Month category and categorize inflows to it, exactly like it sounds like you did in YNAB4. At the end of the month, search for Income Next Month in the All Accounts register, select those transactions, re-categorize as To Be Budgeted, and budget next month's area.

I certainly wish this capability were built-in, but 10 seconds once a month is hardly a showstopper.

dakinemaui 

This doesn’t work.  It’s adds another level of unneeded complexity.  I find this pattern with all new software.  It comes out with a very simple idea and it works.  Then the company becomes successful on that simplicity and that success goes to their heads.  They get cocky and think they can now do what they want.  But what ends up happening every time is they get away from the vision that made them successful and the software suffers for it.  Owners think they can do no wrong and people will just deal with it.  YNAB is just another example of this.  I have gone back to YNAB 4 and will stay on it indefinitely if needed.

dakinemaui thanks for the advice.

Unfortunately the next month category doesn't really fix the issue, here's why:

1. By using a custom category the income/expense report doesn't work.  All income is categorised as an expense and it isn't possible to set a custom category as income.
2. By using a category called Next Month, this month I add the income, then next month I credit the cash from that month into available money, but then during the month I add more money back into the next month category so now I just have an expense category going up and down without really adding any value, and as per point 1, the income/expense reporting is broken.

I don't mind spending an extra 10 seconds doing something, but if I'm doing it to overcome a product issue and if the workaround introduces more issues it's not really worth it.

I did some tests earlier today and there is no simple way of implementing the old approach in a reliable way without having some functionality built into the tool to enable you to turn it on or off.

The more I thought about how to solve the problem, the more I realised that this so called budgeting tool was actually mandating that I plan my expenses pay check to pay check rather than monthly from money I had already earned.  That in essence goes against everything this tool was developed for.

I understand some people may feel different, if indeed they live pay to pay or if they keep setting up new budgets to overcome the shortfalls...but it does highlight a fairly big gap in the product and the rules it was built off.

Ivory Crab No, you’re not understanding how it works. This month’s funds are only in the custom category temporarily. Any time between your last paycheck and the end of the month, you release these funds back to To Be Budgeted. This has zero affect on the income/expense report. Income is income just like always. You can now budget all of next month. Rinse and repeat. Like I said, we’ve been doing this for years. We know what we’re talking about.

Ivory Crab The workaround doesn't introduce additional issues. It is the YNAB4 workflow with a manual release. (The release was automated in YNAB4.)

Reports are accurate once the month is complete. Headers (e.g., total Budgeted) are accurate.

Ivory Crab I use the Income for Next Month (INM) with no problems at all.  I use a different and in my opinion simpler approach than dakinemaui  uses.  I categorize all income as TBB first (not INM) and then immediately move it to the INM holding category.  This method always keeps the report accurate as to when the income arrived.  I keep the INM category at the very top of the budget list to make TBB-INM transfers easier.  Below is the workflow I use.

1)Send all income to TBB first then budget to INM.
2)Any categories that you want to sweep empty at the end of the month should be WAMed to IMM during the current month.
3) When new month starts, budget all categories which will leave TBB negative, cover - TBB with INM.

If there is any income left in INM after step 3 I usually send that to savings.

Edit: I also set a goal for INM to equal my monthly par budget so I know if it is funded enough to cover next month's budget.

ynaber2613 

ynaber2613 said:
3) When new month starts, budget all categories which will leave TBB negative, cover - TBB with INM.
If there is any income left in INM after step 3 I usually send that to savings.

 Sorry, I know this was 2 weeks ago.  I'm working my way back slowly after my vacation...  I have almost this exact same work flow, but I think this step 3 you have it backwards.  It's better to put all of INM into TBB first, and then budget to $0.00.  

The reason I say this is, sometimes the money you got last month isn't quite enough to cover everything, and you might need to let slide a couple of savings goals temporarily.  When the TBB is set to everything available to begin with, it's easy to know when that point has been hit.  right when TBB hits $0.00, you know you're done.

Bruce Your method is probably better if you are short of funds in INM for next months par budget.  

I usually select all categories and use the quick budget button to fund all categories at once so I would leave TBB negative either way if INM was insficient (LOL).

ynaber2613  Bruce

Thanks for the feedback....I've ended up doing the following:

First Month to get started

1. Income goes to TBB
2. Move same amount to category INM

Second Month

1. On the last day of the previous month or first day of next month I reduced INM to $0 budgetted therefore increasing my TBB by last months income
2. I budgeted the month to $0
3. When income comes in, it goes to TBB
4. Move same amount to category INM which increases the balance back up to equal my income for the month

Then I should be able to just repeat.  This way I can use the Future Budgets or this month.  The INM acts more like a float but it keeps all of the income/expense reporting working and all the other budgets remain accurate.

The other thing I did which I didn't realise was available was get a third party bank sync to YNAB given I'm in Australia.  That makes things so much easier, previously having to do the import for transactions it was more difficult to manage because I spent most of my time doing CSV imports and categorisation where as now the transactions are imported daily, not just when I got around to it.  As a result I have more time to do budgetting now, not just acting like a robot importing transactions.

Thanks again.

Superbone You know what else works?  Add the income to next month when you get it.  Finalize the specific budget category allocations once before the month starts.  And yes I know, stealing from the future but that is simple. 

Herman Yes, I did know that. Whatever works for you. Like I said, it ain't that hard.

ynaber2613 said:
If you send it to INM first then you will have to go back and search those transactions and recategorize as TBB later to fix the reports.

That is what you do to make the funds available to budget next month. You do that anyway.

ynaber2613 said:
If you send it to INM first then you will have to go back and search those transactions and recategorize as TBB

The advantage of going to INM first, IMHO, comes in because you don't have to make multiple budget entries throughout the month.

When going to TBB first, there's also a greater risk of mixing income arriving on both sides of the month boundary.

Ultimately, the differences are minor, but there are definitely reasons I prefer going direct to INM. That said, I think *budgeting* to INM is the better choice for anyone who still needs to use some of their income in the current month.

ynaber2613 Yeah, that’s how I used to do it. I just happen to like this way better. Less steps overall. Ultimately, you and I end up at the same place so we’re all good. I do the same as Bruce when budgeting next month.

Superbone The other approach seems more complicated to me, my mind thinks simple (LOL).  In my workflow I probably should rename INM to NMB (Next Months Budget).

ynaber2613 Mine is fully written out: Income for Next Month. I used to call it Buffer but I prefer the explicit name which also more closely matches previous YNAB nomenclature. They used to specify the month each month, e.g. Income for September. 

ynaber2613 said:
Seems like it would be better to send to TBB and then send what's left after use to INM.

Agree. 🙂 Same thought, different phrasing.

Leonel M It's a simple workaround once you get it going. Are you able to use all of this month's funds for next month? If so, you might think of setting up your recurring paychecks to go directly into INM. Then once you have all paychecks for the month, you can recategorize those paychecks as To Be Budgeted and then budget next month. The All Accounts screen makes this easy.

Superbone Thanks for the response!  Glad to see it because it validates what I'm thinking.  In classic YNAB I would enter income from my full-time job as next month and income from my part-time job as current month.  What you suggested was actually what I was going to to try.  So to answer your question - I'd say, yes and I choose not to (and am re-evaluating this in the new YNAB).  lol  Thanks again!!

Superbone Thanks also for the tip to use the All Accounts page this way!!

Leonel M No problem. You can just search for your INM category and bulk change the Categorization to To Be Budgeted when you're ready to budget next month.

Andrew R I recommend the Income for Next Month category. It solves multiple problems and requires less than 10 seconds per month.

Andrew R My journey follows yours exactly. I was an early adopter of YNAB, and it's incredible toolset of telling our dollars where to go instead of seeing where they went helped us get out of a mountain of debt. When they released YNAB online, I tried it for a while, and really gave it my best shot, but my inability to plan for the following month caused me to cancel my subscription and give up.

I am now back as my husband and I want to again figure out where we can trim our spending, and after looking at all the alternatives, YNAB is still the best of the bunch, even with the un-baked-in option to deliberately plan next month's spending (so we can modify our behavior where needed). Will use the INM workaround, and remain as dumbfounded as you that YNAB would eliminate the very tool that set them apart. 

Superbone Appreciate that. But wait, not to take too much of a tangent but is the new credit card system really going to cause trouble as well if they're always paid in full?

Andrew R I say this as someone who likes and uses the nYNAB credit card function - there are a surprisingly large number of ways that the CC balance and CC payment available can get out of sync, and the causes are not always obvious or intuitive, even for an experienced YNABer. 

nolesrule I never change the date of my paychecks in YNAB. And the problem is still there. Money not budgeted into the current month shows up as available to budget in this month *and* next month, but my intention is to instead make that amount available only to next month.

Say I have $500 come in this month on the 15th, but I already did all my "budgeting to zero" on the 1st. I don't want to budget any more income until next month. If I over spend, I want to move money between categories, not move available to budget money.

But say I do take money from available to budget this month to fix some overspending. Now the "Budgeting to zero" I did for *next* month is now broken: I'm over budget for next month.

It's just an unnecessarily confusing system. My wife says it's confusing. Everyone I talk to says it's confusing. And it's frustrating. Just make an option to bring back the old way of dealing with income and everyone is happy. Make it a simple option I can toggle.

void. pointer Stash the income in a category in the month in which it is received (essentially something this thread goes into in great detail if you read through the whole thing), and then release it from the category in the month in which you intend to use it. This is the easiest way to eliminate Stealing From the Future while budgeting money in future months.

I mean it would be nice if the feature existed natively like it does in YNAB4, but those of use using nYNAB after transitioning have employed this work around to great success to avoid the problem.

nolesrule I may have misunderstood you:

> never budgeting income directly into a future month

I thought you meant changing the date of my income in the account register to move it to the next month. What  you meant is don't actually budget numbers in next month with that income. Well, that goes against exactly how nYNAB wants you to do it, doesn't it?

The official process is to always budget to zero each time a pay check comes in. If you don't need money this month, you budget it for next month. All of their help/wiki articles give examples of this.

nolesrule Yeah I already do it this way, so I think we're on the same page. But the OP makes a good point about why that workaround sucks, and as per my original reply: Just bring in the option natively and everyone is happy. I think we're in violent agreement here, just speaking it in different terms.

void. pointer see my post above about putting it in a category and then releasing it in a future month. Search for discussions on "Income for Next month", "Next month's income" or even just "INM".

nolesrule We're a bit mistimed on our replies, but see my reply above :)

void. pointer okay, when you phrase it like that, yeah, we are in agreement. I'm still a proponent of having the functionality be native.

void. pointer And for the record, I'm the original creator of the phrase Stealing From the Future (that seems to have been picked up by YNAB users of all circles), and I'm still a huge proponent of fixing all issues that cause it.

nolesrule Sorry to be negative here, but when it comes down to it, you're just another person they're gonna ignore. You've been waiting 5 years and you'll wait another 5. If they haven't fixed it now, I'm not convinced they will at all.

void. pointer I'm not convinced they are ever going to fix it either, considering they promised a fix back in January 2016 and said it was just around the corner in August 2016. Doesn't mean I should give up on my crusade.

void. pointer Are you aware of the YNAB Toolkit which has an option to warn you when you've SFTF? For the life of me, I don't know why YNAB hasn't made this a native feature.

Superbone I haven't used that, I try not to depend on the toolkit too much since it isn't available on the Android app, which I rely on heavily. But good to know!