positive number on credit card
OK, y'all have helped me get my fresh start back on track last month. All was good until right now. We got a refund from a pre-paid purchase on a cancelled cruise put back on the credit card, and now there is a positive balance. Yay for me! But what is it doing in YNAB?
I see the positive $123 balance on the left. In the budget it shows $0 available. Move Light Sound Life told me in another thread I always wanted to have the same (but opposite) numbers showing here!
What is it doing? I don't want to mess this up since I got it in line finally!
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It should be equal but opposite when the CC balance is negative - this is how you know you always have enough money reserved to pay off the credit card at any time if you needed to.
When your CC balance is positive, there's nothing to pay back so your category balance being zero is correct. As long as your CC balance is positive, YNAB will treat it like a checking account. Purchases will subtract from the spending category and reduce the positive balance in the account, but no money will move to the CC category.
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Vibrant I did a test transaction into a category that there's nothing budgeted for the $123. It did bring my cc to $0 on the left and the $0 in available, Great! But it put -$123 in my test category.
So, I'm thinking that I remember someone saying that it puts the positive number in TBB, right?
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cpshaye You're exactly right! When your balance went positive, those $123 would have been added to your To be Budgeted amount. It can be easy to miss, especially if you have other funds sitting there ready to budget to zero.
That said: if your To be Budgeted amount is currently at zero, your Credit Card Payment category is at zero, and your credit card has a $123 balance to spend in real life and in YNAB, then you're good to go!
If all of the above is true, then the $123 cash balance on your credit card has already been assigned to your budget categories, alongside all of your other cash. When you spend from that card, your budgeted available amounts will reduce, like when you spend from a checking account, but no money will move to your Credit Card Payment category!
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cpshaye said:
But it put -$123 in my test category.Regardless of what account is being used to pay, your budget category needs enough money to support the purchase. Either use a category that has $123 available or move $123 to the category you used to make YNAB's functionality work.
Unless, of course, you're trying to finance something on credit, but you're not - especially in this situation. 🙂
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Thanks everybody! I hadn't noticed it added the $123 in my TBB because my husband just got paid and there were already funds there.
Great! I'm still on track!
