Creating EveryDollar Style "Funds" in YNAB?
I've been using EveryDollar's free version for some time now and I LOVE budgeting. I'm hopeful for YNAB, but I'm very overwhelmed, to say the least.
I must admit, I don't love how YNAB constantly shows big red numbers in the sidebar for all the debt I'm trying to pay off. It's a bit discouraging :( I've accepted reality, of course, but I like to focus on progress.
My main quip is this -- and I'm sure there's a smart way to handle it, for those familiar...
It seems like YNAB wants me to budget every single dollar. I don't want to do that. I like to keep money in my checking account and money in my savings account. I like how EveryDollar can show my current balances at the top of my budget.
In EveryDollar, I've created a category called "Reserves" and created "Funds" for each of my checking/savings accounts, as shown in the screenshot (with falsified numbers). How can I do this in YNAB?
My focus is on building up these reserves, not budgeting every dollar into spending or even "savings" categories. If it makes a difference, I have a widely varying income and get paid at various times each month. I do manual entry for income and bills.
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The short answer is you can't. You've stated you don't want to do it the way ynab works so you should probably stick with everydollar.
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Herman Thanks for your reply. I'm asking because I'm still figuring out how YNAB works. Is there no way to add accounts that carry a positive balance from month to month without that balance being subtracted to or added to my income each month?
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Pineapple Gal you add categories and budget the money there. Once it is added to a category it will stay there. It won’t be added as income in future months
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Pineapple Gal said:
It seems like YNAB wants me to budget every single dollar. I don't want to do that. I like to keep money in my checking account and money in my savings account. I like how EveryDollar can show my current balances at the top of my budget.It does and you do. You budget every dollar. Notice I didn’t say spend every dollar. We all keep money in our checking accounts and money in our savings accounts. I’m not sure what you’re trying to say. YNAB shows all balances too. Your account balances are on the left and your category balances are on the right. Continue to grow your category balances each month while paying all your bills without going into further debt. YNAB helps you to optimize every penny.
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Here’s another way to look at it. All of your account funds in your budget are added together and are available to budget. Some are budgeted to bills due before you get paid again and some are budgeted to savings categories which are meant to grow every month.
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Hey, I didn’t use EveryDollar for long, but I do remember the Funds thing. Basically every single category in YNAB is a Fund. So if you have $2k set aside for a new car, $400 set aside for renters insurance, and $10k for an emergency fund, just make those same categories in YNAB and budget that amount onto each of them.
Up at the top of the page you can advance to next month, and you’ll see that leftover money carries forward in every single category. Even that last $2.47 from groceries and $11.41 for takeout.
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TheTabby Thank you! That's the info I was looking for. I've been watching some set up videos and I like how things rollover.
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Just wanted to add: you don't have to add your debt accounts to YNAB! If it bugs you to see the negative, just leave those accounts out of YNAB and treat the payments like any other monthly bill.
The only exception to this is a credit card that you're using for new purchases. Those have to be part of the budget, negative balance and all. But loans, lines of credit, and credit cards that you're paying off and not making new purchases, all of those can be left out of the budget entirely.
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Matthew Thanks! That's actually what I've started playing around with after watching some videos. YNAB was a bit overwhelming to start with, but I think I'm going to stick with it because I love all the cool reporting it does and calculations it can make, like "Average Age of Money" :P
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Pineapple Gal That's just the tip of the iceberg. The best thing it does is allow you to master your money and optimize it fully to your priorities. Let your category balances inform your spending decisions. Save more, get out of debt, and never look back.
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