
Budgeting for Multiple Vacations
YNAB newbie here! So far, I feel like this is the answer to my budgeting dreams! I love how granular I can be in my categories. But - vacation has stumped me. My family is taking a lot of small trips this summer (camping, a weekend at the beach, a wedding out of town), and one big trip next year. I'd ideally like to be able to budget for each trip individually so I know that, say, $100 of the next paycheck needs to go specifically towards my camping trip or the beach weekend, etc. Then when the vacation is over - rather than clogging my Vacations category group, I'd like to archive the category.
I set it all up, went on vacation, and then ran in to the issues. When I hide the category, it removes it from Reports. When I delete the category, YNAB tells me that I needed to re-categorize all of the transactions.
How do others (who like to granularly budget like me) handle this? I was thinking of creating a catch-all Vacations category and then re-categorizing each individual vacation into the catch-all when we're finished. That way it will show up on Reports as Vacations and I will still be able to budget for each trip individually.
Writing this out... I feel like I may have solved my own problem. LOL 馃槀 But I'm still curious to hear how others go about this!
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Save for each vacation in its own line and then move the money to one generic "Vacations" category before each trip begins. a la the Wish Farm. You will then be able to delete the individual category (or rename it) because no transactions will have happened, only budgeting.
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Hi Kristi Turner ! Welcome to You Need A Budget. There are some really great tips here! Test them out, and you'll find what works best for your budget. 馃槃
Sherri, one of our amazing YNAB teachers, recently wrote a blog post on her Next Level Budgeting: Category Groups and Vacations for another approach.