How to Designate CC Payments Made from Savings Categories
I've been using YNAB for several weeks, and I can't quite get my head around how to mark credit card payments out of my savings account that are coming from a particular savings category. The best way I've found so far is to mark the payment on my credit card account (inflow) as "To be budgeted" and mark the corresponding payment out of my savings account (outflow) as "Emergency" (or whatever bucket). Is that the best way to keep the balance correct in my budget categories?
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https://www.youneedabudget.com/the-relationship-between-your-budget-your-accounts-its-complicated/
Read this a couple times until it sinks in. Don't try to map categories to accounts. You categorize when you make the transaction on the card. CC payment is a non-budget event. It's just a transfer to the credit card.
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Superbone Thanks! I think the hangup was due to the initial transaction occurring last month before I set up YNAB and coming in as a starting balance on the card (with no category). I just moved money from the Emergency Available to the Chase Sapphire Available and marked the payment as a transfer. Hopefully that will take care of it.
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Don't make 2 transactions for CC payments, do them as a transfer between accounts (Payee reads "Transfer To/From"). It doesn't matter whether it's from checking or savings or what have you.
You don't need to pull money out of another bucket to pay your CC. You already spent against your budget categories when you used the card, and so paying off the card should do nothing other than lower the Payments field for your CC.
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Aquamarine Rhythm Gotcha. I think my issue is that the initial transaction occurred last month before I set up my YNAB and came into YNAB as a credit card balance, so I can't categorize that transaction as coming from our Emergency Fund budget. I can make the payment a transfer, but since I can't categorize it, it won't bring down my Emergency Fund "Available" balance. I'll mess around with some more and see how I can fix that. Thanks!
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McScribble you're merely wanting to make a larger payment. Reallocate money from one or more lower priority categories to the CC Payment category to enable that. If that's from your Emergency Fund, then so be it. (Click on the Source category Available to start.)
And yes, your payment should be recorded as a transfer. At this point, that payment is reducing debt. How or when the debt got there is immaterial.
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dakinemaui Ok. I think I was also getting confused because the "Available" amount was so high, but that's because the payment I made is included in that amount. Since it's not money I can use, I couldn't figure out why that would be included, but that's the money from the payment I made plus the money I've already budgeted for purchases that will come off the credit card this month. I think I'm squared away now. Thanks!
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