bret up until now I've been budgeting in the future month but I like what you're saying about a future category. Is there any way to actually know how much to save for next month without manually adding up immediate obligations etc? What I like currently is that I can accurately go in and fund specific categories to know I definitely have enough

Stu Stirling

To transition from paycheck/paycheck budgeting to monthly budgeting:

1) Figure how much money you would need to fund only the minimum requirements in a month.  Select any categories that you absolutely need to fund in the month (include Rule 2 contributions, and I included a bit of fun money, too.  I did not include previous saving priorities without timelines).  The inspector can show you underfunded (maybe go to a clean next month to see a cleaner number), budgeted, and total goals (though that may be a Toolkit feature).

2) Now that you have the number you need, put that number in the category name of your new INM category (or set a goal...)

3) Each paycheck, put money into that category after your normal budget is taken care of.  The more you can put in, the faster you'll transition.

4) When your INM category has enough money to fund your basic spending requirements, then at the beginning of the next month, move your INM money to TBB, and budget your month.  If you truly don't need to budget anything else (you can move money among categories of the same month when you need to WAM), you've done it!

When You're a Month Ahead

• All and any income you receive should go to your INM category.  It doesn't matter how much.  You'll budget it on the 1st of whatever month is next.
• To help streamline this, I set the category of those income events to be "INM."  Then, right before I budget the new month, I go to "All Accounts," search for the INM category, and re-categorize them as "Inflow:TBB" then budget like normal.

Good luck!  It's a great way to budget!

Move Light Sound Life That's a great way to recreate the functionality of the old YNAB 3 (and 4, I just only used 3) by categorizing the income directly to that category, and then moving it into TBB once the month changeover happens.

Move Light Sound Life Did I mess up my reports by categorizing Income to TBB, then to "Income for next month" planning to redistribute it on June 1st? Will it show as income twice?

MomonWheels No, as long as income goes through TBB, the reports will be fine. 

It sounds like you categorized (transaction side) to TBB, moved money (budget side) to INM, and then you'll move money again to budget in June. That's all perfect.

I decided to automate more than half of that work by getting rid of the move money steps and scheduling future income as INM. Right now, the reports show an annoyingly positive spending category in my INM for May, but when I recategorize all those transactions back to TBB around June 1st, the reports are completely accurate. I figure the May report isn't acurate until it's June anyways, so I ignore it.

I like my way (which I learned on the forum) because I don't have random numbers popping up in TBB. Very awkward when you're trying to look at your grocery category in the store and there's a big paycheck sitting at the top of the screen...

Move Light Sound Life  Okay Great. I'm doing everything manually, so I never have unexpected money in TBB but I could see why you would want to streamline the process.

MomonWheels I do manual transaction entry, too. Look into using scheduled transactions - they can be very helpful (implicit goals, managing cash-flow while maximizing interest, and bill/budget reminders). 

I got tired of typing the same thing for the internet bill, the mortgage, the paycheck, etc. 

Move Light Sound Life So far I have been adding scheduled recurring transactions a they come up in real life. I'm a little confused as to whether I should do this for monthly bills that are never the same amount, like electric and utilities. 

MomonWheels I do have a base amount in there (some people use 0, but that's more work), and then when I get the bill, I'll update the scheduled transaction with the correct amount, putting the month in the memo. If I'm in June, and my scheduled electric transaction has May in the memo, I know I haven't updated it yet. 

I do have a monthly funding goal on those to facilitate quick budgeting and rolling over excess. I try to budget enough normally in electric so that enough rolls over to be available for the hot summer months. I'll soon see if my average was a good estimate.

Move Light Sound Life  Thank you! I'm trying to accept that they way I budget is a living, breathing thing. I have to learn ans adjust as I go. Logically, I know this. But the Type A Gemini in me wants everything perfect NOW. 😊

MomonWheels I'm a perfectionist, too. I read all the available help/how-to docs, and still overhauled different practices every so often. YNAB helped my situation to change, and my growing understanding of the software/method/workflows allowed me to do more advanced things. 

Someone in my family is the same personality as me. I tried to get them set up with some of the bells and whistles I'd figured out, and it flat out didn't work.  I really think there are different stages of using YNAB, based on how much a user can trust the software and what their financial goals are. It's quite impressive it can work so well in many situations, tbh.

There is no doubt that, objectively, I would have had an easier time with things, had I started knowing some of the "tricks" I use now. However, personal finance is a personal journey - I couldn't have used workflows based on fundamental concepts I was just learning. I need checks and balances. 

I'm trying again tomorrow with that person. There are some things that just take living it to see how it works.

Amy H There's a lot to be said for the simplicity of budgeting in the month of receipt. I'm very much a fan of NOT splitting the plan across months.

It's also very natural to have a category in which to save in order to transition to budgeting solely on next month's area in month-sized chunks. When it's big enough, make the switch. In fact, this is how YNAB used to teach about getting ahead.

They implemented budgeting to arbitrary future months in the latest product, but IMHO, it wasn't a problem that needed solving. "New" doesn't necessarily mean "better".

EP yes!

EP Exactly. Makes you wonder why they did it like they did. Because if it updated on-the-fly like every other goal and you didn't touch it, it would STILL say you needed $118. So no different in the use-case considered. However, anyone wanting to plan before June 1 -- like probably EVERYBODY -- would already know they should plan on $118.  Again, I encourage you to let YNAB know if you think it could be improved.

dakinemaui There are different goal types. The Monthly Contribution type says add $130 to the category every month. The Monthly goal type says start the month with $130 in the category. Simply edit the goal and change its type.

Elastic Squirrel you're missing the nuance of the question. The monthly "spend up to" goal type doesn't do the math between the available balance and the goal for the next month until the month rolls over. So if I have $129 in the category today, May 20, if I flip forward to June it will still tell my me goal is underfunded by $130.

EP I would budget $130 as a monthly goal type for this month and add the $118 when budgeting next month to meet the goal. If I have the money today, I can put the $118 in the budget for next month and meet the goal today.

Elastic Squirrel said:
I would budget $130 as a monthly goal type for this month and add the $118 when budgeting next month to meet the goal

What kind of monthly goal do you mean? There are 2, and neither is satisfactory as I see it. You won't meet a Monthly Contribution goal, and OP doesn't want to wait until last minute to plan next month.

In the latter case, they have to do the math, which rather defeats the purpose of a Monthly Spending Goal.

Even worse, if they hit the Underfunded button in next month's area now, they will budget MORE than necessary, obviously shorting something else.

EP Your statement is correct. You are not misunderstanding.

EP Change the goal type as I mentioned above.

EP And that's because as was explained above by dakinemaui the monthly spending goal will only update correctly (or as would be expected) once you've actually reached the month that you are trying to budget in. Until then it will tell you you need to fund the full month value. It's stupid behavior but it is what it is.

EP You may have two goals. One for May and another for June. I haven’t seen this documented, but from experimentation I found YNAB uses the newest goal until it is replaced. This is to allow us to change goals. Right now, you want $130 per month.  You may need to raise it in the future, but wouldn’t want to lose the fact you had a previous goal of $130. YNAB makes a new goal in the month you change it, superseding the previous goal in effect. As you scroll through budget months, you see the goal that was in effect then.

To fix your problem, go to June and delete the goal.  Then go to May and change the type from Monthly Contribution to Monthly.

EP Go to May and look at the goal amount and type. Don’t change anything, cancel out. Then do the same for June.

Elastic Squirrel You are missing the point of how monthly spending goals work when you haven't gotten to that month yet. It's working as designed. It's just a poor design.

Elastic Squirrel said:
Don’t change anything, cancel out.

 ?? If you cancel out, nothing changes.

dakinemaui Correct. I believe the goal type in effect for June is Monthly Contribution, not Monthly.

Elastic Squirrel It is impossible to have a Monthly Contribution in June and a Monthly Spending in May. There is only a single goal that applies from the month it is defined forward. The fact there is a goal in May guarantees the exact same goal is present in June. Creating (or editing) a goal in June will delete any goal from May's area.

(This is actually the basis of a hack for turning off the underfunded warning when reallocating funds for Rule 3.)

dakinemaui That was what I did. I had six or seven pay events per month, with only two occurring with both the same time interval and amounts. It was very important that I get a month ahead and fast. So I didn’t fund any Rule 2s until I was buffered. 54 days later, I was budgeting month-sized chunks at a time, and started funding my Rule 2s then. 

Bruce You just need to "match" the release to the capture in order for reports to make sense.

• If you directly categorized the inflow as TBB, you need to edit the transaction to recategorize.
• If you categorize the inflow as TBB then budgeted to INM, then you should use a budget entry to release -- either delete the entry in the current month, budget a negative entry in next month's area, or use the Move Money Tool in either.

I prefer the direct categorization because it's overall less effort and less prone to error (both by me as well as the timing of when I budget). Your choice also has an impact on the monthly headers.

dakinemaui hmmm..  Not sure which  choice I use.  What I do is put income directly into INM from my (and wife's) paychecks.  it sits there until next month, when I use the Move Money tool to put everything from INM into TBB.  Then I go through the process of budgeting it all down to $0.

I haven't paid enough attention to the monthly headers to recognize what affects them.  I see sometimes there are numbers, and sometimes they're $0.00, but I haven't really tried to understand what they mean.  I figure if my TBB is $0.00 and my categories all have money in them, I'm good.  :)

Bruce The "issue" is in the reports. You have no income as far as YNAB is concerned when you never inflow the money to TBB.

Bruce With your current process, your the Income report will show $0 and Total & Average Expenses will be understated by your income (meaning near $0, but usually slightly negative). If this bothers you, you might consider a different process.

I agree, TBB is the main header to look at.

nolesrule dakinemaui thanks, I think I get it.  I've been doing it wrong for about a year.  So you're saying I have to move it back and forth twice?  From paycheck into TBB -> INM, then at end of month INM -> TBB?  (using the Move Money Tool)

...I'll think about it...

Bruce The first direction is typically automatic if you use the categorization approach (scheduled transaction or Payee rules). I believe this is what you currently do, right?

Being automatic is one of the reasons I prefer it -- it stays out of the way until I'm ready to deal with it at the end of the month (or even a few days into the new month).

However, that choice mandates recategorization on the release in order to make reports sensible.

dakinemaui said:
If you directly categorized the inflow as TBB, you need to edit the transaction to recategorize.

I'm so sorry, I botched first bullet above about matching the input to the release. It should read as follows:

If you directly categorize the inflow as *INM*, you need to edit the transaction to re-categorize as TBB at the end of the month.

Bruce When you switch something from inflowing directly into a category to then go to TBB, it can create a category with a negative balance if you have already pulled the money out of that category. This negative category balance carries into the next month's TBB number as overspending, so it offsets the money that now goes into TBB instead of the category.

Eric Lofgren You can do that, but you will need to be on guard against the bug called Stealing From The Future. I see you started a new post, so I'll write more over there.

Eric Lofgren I wouldn't want to scatter my plan across multiple screens if funds were tight. It seems a little too easy to lose track, at least to me.