Green Nomad There is no problem. As long as you categorize both the inflow and the outflow to the reimbursement category, no money is added to your TBB, and as a result there is no money to budget anywhere.

Your mistake apparently was that you inflowed the money to the category and also Budgeted it. You should not have budgeted it because there was nothing to budget.

Green Nomad Money can't be in two categories at once. It can't be populating a category to tell you how much you have in your wallet while also being in a reimbursement category.

Categories are the purpose of the money, while Accounts are the location of your money, even if they aren't actual physical bank accounts. We have 3 cash accounts in our budget (my wallet, Mrs. nolesrule's wallet, and a cash stash). I suggest you separate the concepts and stop using a category to track the balance of an account.

Green Nomad If you use a category for the money in your wallet, then you are telling your budget that the purpose of the cash in your wallet is to be in your wallet. That's not a job. Don't do that.

Green Nomad Just categorize your cash spending normally. If you spend $20 in cash at the grocery store, enter the transaction on your wallet account as groceries. You're adding unnecessary steps. Your cash is already budgeted by being in an on-budget account and being spread out to your categories.

Green Nomad 

Green Nomad said:
If I can't use categories for my piles of cash then I'm forced to create multiple cash accounts -- cash in wallet, cash in house, cash in car, etc. That seems too unwieldy.

How would cash accounts be more unwieldy than how you are handling cash categories? You are currently trying to use a category as a pseudo account.

But if you don't have a cash account then where does the money in your cash category actually live according to YNAB? It can't be in one of your other accounts, because then you would be unable to reconcile your accounts. if you can't reconcile your accounts, then your budget might have the wrong amount of money in it.

Green Nomad said:
But if you think I'm doing it wrong, can you make a suggestion for how I can do it better?

 Yes, you need an account in YNAB to hold your cash. When you spend the cash, it's a transaction in your cash account assigned to the appropriate category.

Green Nomad That's more work than having separate cash accounts for each location (or even just using the single aggregate account) and just using the money that's cash in your categories. I'm not sure why you think it's less work.

Green Nomad What’s the upside for allocating money in the cash account into different cash categories, just to move it to where it was really spent? Why not just enter the Eating Out expense directly against the cash account?

Green Nomad by keeping the cash in categories, your other categories aren't being used for spending guidance. Instead, your logic is... "I have enough cash, I can spend it on X by just moving money to category X." Instead you should have all the money for X already in the category. Having uncategorized money, as you do with these cash categories, gives you an excuse to overspend. By keeping the money in the spending categories, you can instead create a scarcity mentality, helping you to better save or pay down debt.

Green Nomad Additionally, I fail to see how the money gets into the cash categories to begin with. What happens when you make a ATM withdrawal, but all your money is already assigned to categories? What category do you pull the money from to move it to the cash category?

This just seems unwieldy and confusing. You need to simplify and keep it real.

Green Nomad You said you have one main cash account. Why isn’t that account encompassing all cash and then expenditures assigned to it rather than putting money in a wallet category — which is just a pseudo-account in this usage — and moving it around from there?

Green Nomad If part of your cash account balance is for emergencies, budget it toward emergencies. Budgeting something to Wallet doesn’t mean much unless it’s meant just to sit in your wallet. 

Green Nomad I always try to keep a certain amount of money in my wallet too. $20. if I use it, I grab another $20 at the ATM. You need to stop trying to conflate location of money with purpose of money. Once you get that through your head, your budget will be easier to manage.

If you are spending cash on something, and then moving the cash from the wallet category to the actual spending category, then you aren't using the spending category balance to guide your spending decisions. If you aren't using the category balances to guide your spending decisions, then you aren't using YNAB effectively.

So just STOP using the cash categories. You say you are doing it to hide the money, but that's not what you are doing. Instead, you are using the money to be able to spend MORE than you want to... and that defeats the purpose of having a budget.

Green Nomad 

Green Nomad said:
So, you're saying the cash in my wallet should be allocated to spending categories, even though I want to keep some cash in my wallet?

 Yes. if you use the cash, just get some more at an ATM. It doesn't affect the budget.

Green Nomad said:
What about the emergency cash in my house, which I definitely DON'T want to spend on anything if I can help it, except in the case of an emergency?

 If you have an emergency fund category in your budget that exceeds the pile of emergency cash, then you're good to go.

Remember that money is fungible. it can be used for anything in your budget at any time, and it really doesn't matter where you keep it. if you want some of it in cash in a safe or under the mattress, that's just a location. If you want it reserved for emergencies, then it's just part of your budget's emergency fund.

Green Nomad On cash to you money came, and from the Bank account left. It does not matter where you came from and where you went, the main thing is that you managed to transfer funds from a Bank account to cash.

bret I spend so little cash that recording the occasional transaction is hardly a burden. 😆 It does, however, greatly simplify reimbursements.

dakinemaui that's where I'm at. I have 2 cash accounts. The emergency stash: It has never had a single transaction in it other than the starting balance. Wallet: About once a quarter I get cash from the ATM (on 9/22 I took out $200, I still have $115.17). And I spend it on any number of things. I mean, usually my Friday bagel at the deli because of the credit card minimum. But there's other stuff. And since I only get cash once every few months, I can't predict where that money is going to go.

jenmas I haven't gone to the atm machine in years. Cash inflows for reimbursements provide way more cash than I can/want to spend.

I hate spending cash, because that's money on which I don't earn CC purchase rewards.

dakinemaui I used to get half a year of cash needs from collecting money for girl scout cookies.

I'd say 90% of our cash needs are the kids allowances, and that gets more expensive as they get older. I can't wait till Oldest is old enough for her own checking account.

nolesrule Capital One has an account for teens that has no fees, no minimums, a debit card, mobile deposit, a piddly amount of interest, and can send the parents a text with alerts on all transactions.

jenmas yeah. That's probably the direction I'd go. She's not quite a teen just yet. 

nolesrule I believe the requirement is 8+. Whether child is ready for it is a different kettle of fish.

nolesrule All 3 of my kids (age range 9-15) have Capital One Money cards.  Total lifesaver!!  My Capital One login screen is a little nuts with each of their cards and corresponding Kids savings accounts, my savings account, my checking acct, and what I used to manage for my mom, but it is so convenient overall.  Once in a while it gets hairy when they want to split a purchase between them, one uses the card, the other gives me a handful of quarters, and the 3rd is paying the other back for the charge, and then they all come to me to settle this up.  I blow my stack, tell them I'll do this once a month, and then it's back to normal :).

But seriously, look into it.  If only the 9 year old would stop losing his card... grrr.

Annieland I signed up Oldest. Of course, I had to jump through hoops and call customer service. She already had the savings account, so I signed her up for the Money account. It had a very old address. So I went to change it. It apparently didn't save the change, but created the account anyway. Also, the money transfer didn't happen either, and a manual transfer didn't work. So I called, and after being on hold awhile, they fixed the issues for me.

I don't think my Youngest is ready for it yet.She practically gives away her money. I need her to be a bit more mindful before she gets a card to swipe.

I do have a question though. What do the kids do when they need to make a payment for something that is neither cash nor debit card? They apparently don't get a bill pay/check writing service.

nolesrule Hmm I can't say I've encountered that yet.  There is a routing and account number though, so maybe e-check or ACH works.  I have my youngest's card linked to my PayPal account so I can help him buy things on eBay.  But any other P2P payments I haven't tried.  If I encountered that situation, like let's say my daughter owed her friend money for something, I'd pay it and then transfer the amount to my account with a swipe.  It's not perfect, as in the type of situation I outlined above, but it works for the most part.

nolesrule You may be overrstimating the frequency one needs to send checks when one doesn’t have children. 

WordTenor but she would be paying for things that I would have been writing checks for if she did not have her own account. 

Blue Wildcat 

Blue Wildcat said:
A lot of people are suggesting alternative ways of budgeting from your current method altogether, many of which I agree with but don’t directly answer the issue you are asking about.

Yeah, this tends to happen when the correct answer to "how do I do this?" is "You don't do this, you need to do something else."