How much did I budget?
Hi all,
I'm in the middle of recrafting my budget template and wanted to know if there was a way to see how much my budget template is underfunded at the beginning of any given month (assuming that I was starting at $0 in my spending categories).
Currently when I click to select all categories, I see an underfunded amount, but it includes money that is currently budgeted for this month. Is there a way to see the total amount that is underfunded next month, assuming I spent all the money I budgeted in spending categories and was starting at $0? I see the option to set all amounts to zero, but I don't want to zero out my savings categories.
Here's a view of June with all categories selected, underfunded is $2,198.07. I think this may be inaccurate because of the amounts in the available column. By June I expect these amounts in everything except "Future Debt Prevention," "Savings and Goals," and "Travel" to be close to zero.
Here's a view when I clicked "set all amounts to zero." The underfunded amount is $5,747.75. I feel like this one is inaccurate because I'm not planning to build up all of my savings accounts from zero.
Let me know if you have any thoughts. I basically want to know how much I'm trying to budget for in a given month and if I'm setting too unrealistic of goals for the amount of income that I typically bring in (on average about $2,100 a month).
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HI Colleen Cirocco !
The Underfunded Quick Budget option is affected by a number of things - Scheduled Transactions, Goals and any overspending.
For instance, if you have Monthly Funding Goals in place for a category, than the Available amount wouldn't affect the amount needed to reach your goal, but if you're using a Target Category Balance by Date goal than the Available balance does affect the Underfunded amount.
With those different goals in place, there isn't an automatic way to see the amount you need for next month were the Available amounts to be spent. Setting the Available amounts to zero like you did should give you a rough estimate, otherwise you'd need to click on each category individually to determine how much you need versus how much is being considered towards that goal.
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Faness I see what you’re saying. I guess what I’m having a hard time with is knowing if my goals can be realistically met with the amount of income that I make. I want to make a realistic budget and it’s hard to know if I’m setting my goals correctly at this point.
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Colleen Cirocco If you install the Toolkit for YNAB for Chrome or Firefox, you can add a Total Monthly Goals amount to the right sidebar. This might be what you're looking for.
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Hey mamster , I just downloaded the toolkit but I'm not seeing the feature you're mentioning. The only difference I can see is a new section for Toolkit Reports (the first screen shot).
My main budgeting screen still looks the same (the second screen shot). Is there a tutorial out there on using the toolkit?
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Colleen Cirocco The Toolkit extension puts a button in your toolbar that takes you to the settings page. It looks like a little green plus in a square. Then once you're in the settings, go to Budget settings, and turn on Display Total Monthly Goals. Images attached!
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mamster Mind. Blown. Wow. There are so many options! I'm going to have fun with this. The person/people who built this out are saints.
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A lot of these features remind me of features in Mint that I really miss, like seeing a progress bar towards maxing out your budget. Love it.
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If you do a Fresh Start, all your goals & scheduled transactions are maintained. You can use the "Underfunded" button there to see what you have lined up.
I do that periodically, and then rename the fresh start to something else & the archived back to the original name (so I keep using my real budget & have a play budget that matches). Then I can play around in the newer one by adjusting goals, or entering a transaction for my typical monthly income and moving it around until I am happy with it.
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adriana01 Woah! Brilliant! I like that solution. And in your experience everything lines up and there are no surprise overages or shortages?
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Colleen Cirocco it works with the structure you had in the original budget, so as long as that was accurate the fresh start will be too. Stuff always comes up, but you learn how to roll with the punches (rule 3) and adjust the budget if a bill you forgot comes due or you buy lunch instead of bringing leftovers.
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adriana01 Makes sense, thank you!
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