Double dipping in budget screen?
So YNAB as a whole has made me cry twice. I feel like the absolute dumbest person on earth, have started over twice, watch all kinds of "helpful" things, and do not understand for the life me how this is working for people???
I have so many questions - but the one about credit cards is this: I pay my balance each month. But I'm also budgeting for the items I charge. For instance, each month my internet bill is charged to the card. I want to budget $40 in the fixed expenses category. But when I enter the amount to budget for the card payment, that $40 is being "deducted" twice from the 'to be budgeted' amount. If I leave the 'budgeted' category as zero, and it auto-fills my payments, I get a red bubble saying I've overspent in the credit card payment category.
I don't... how... what am I doing wrong?
-
You do not budget for paying back a credit card for budgeted purchases.
When you make a budgeted purchase on a credit card (meaning when you enter the purchase transaction in the credit card account register), YNAB takes the money out of the spending category and adds it to the credit card payment category for you automatically.
-
Stuff you buy after starting YNAB is budgeted for in the spending categories. The stuff you buy before starting YNAB (the starting balance transaction outflow) is budgeted for in the CC Payment category. No double-dipping! Hope it helps!
-
Oh no! I'm sorry to hear that. It's the last thing we want! 😕 Credit cards in YNAB are designed to help you easily budget for spending on plastic and always have the payment available--but if you don't know how they work, they can be super confusing!
Like others on this thread have said, when you make purchases on a credit card, money moves from your spending categories to the Credit Card Payment category—as long as there’s money in those categories. (We call that budgeted spending.)
Example:
1. You budget $40 for your internet bill in your Fixed Expenses category.
2. You charge your internet bill on your credit card and categorize it as Fixed Expenses.
3. $40 will automatically be moved from the Fixed Expenses category where you budgeted them to your credit card payment category. You'll see your Fixed Expenses Available goes down by $40, and your credit card payment Available goes up by $40. 🙂
To learn more about how credit cards work in YNAB, check out these resources:
- Video explaining the two ways money gets into your credit card payment category
- Quick Start Guide to Credit Cards
