Superbone It just loaded for me... try again? ;-)

Matthew Whoomp! There it is!

Matthew I dig it how it now handles varying length month goals by going weekly instead.

Moohouse spending goals behave that way, I think,  because the next month can't be sure you won't encounter a last minute expense in that category and the goal target of next month depends on that

Next month can't be sure you will spend it either, but clearly assumes you have until the month changes.

Purple Panther My parents had luxurious, long RED shag carpet in their den where I used to watch TV as a kid.

RIP_MSMoney I'm changing mine to Needed for Spending goals. If it repeats, isn't it by definition a spending goal?

Superbone differences being that if spend early then it needs to be replenished. Eg prop tax vs summer vaca

RIP_MSMoney I set my property taxes up last night. I have two payments per year. Dec 1 and Apr 1. I set up an April 1 Needed for Spending goal of 2X, X being the amount due on each date.

Superbone That only works if you're already on track. The more general solution is a goal for X due in Dec that repeats every 6 months. This will handle the startup phase for anyone starting with less than 6 months to save.

You won't spend from it early, so it's equivalent to the old "Save By Date" goal. That's a good thing, because they were redundant before in such cases.

Jaime Jaurigue I believe Needed for Spending Monthly will indeed roll over (that is, the amount not spent WILL count toward the following month's budgeting goal once the new calendar month begins). This page: https://docs.youneedabudget.com/article/128-goals states "When using Weekly or Monthly goals, if you don't spend all your budgeted funds in the current month, the remaining amount will contribute to the next month's goal(s) when the month rolls over."

As far as I can tell, Needed for Spending Monthly works exactly like the previous Monthly Spending goal by default. 

W R so therefore, if my goal is $100 and I have $20 left for June. I will only need to budget $80 for July right?

Jaime Jaurigue that's right I believe. One tricky thing though is that it's impossible to test/verify these kinds of monthly rollover behavior until July 1 actually arrives on the calendar, so like you I had a lot of questions as I was getting started. But monthly goals of this kind have always had exactly this kind of rollover behavior, yes, so you should be good!

Jaime Jaurigue that's right. A monthly spending goal will only require the difference it needs for you to "top it up" so to say. if it was fully funded with amount Y in June and then you spent X, in July it'll ask you to budget amount X to get it back to balance Y

Peter So, how would this work with weekly spending goals? As I understand it to be, when budgeting a new month automatically, it will calculate the number of weeks (or actually the number of times the day of the week you specified, in my case Saturday), subtract any budget left over from previous month and budget that.

What happens when the second Saturday arrives? Will this type of category release excess funds from previous Saturday (if any) to To Be Budgeted?

Optimist The goal still works on a monthly basis, it just uses the weekly info in determining the amount that you need for the month. So if I say I need $100 for groceries every week, it will tell me the monthly goal that I need to budget is $400 in months with 4 Saturdays, and $500 in months with 5 Saturdays. This goal type would also take into consideration balances leftover from a prior month, so if you had money left over at the end of June, it would simply ask for less in July to fund the month.

Tobias Thanks for your response. No mid-month fine-tuning. Got it!

Optimist In the original post above, it looks like they are working on that based on what Matthew said. Just not available at the moment.

Tobias Optimist no goal moves money back to TBB though, or make money move anywhere at all I think. Even to use a goal you have to click fund goals. And if you’d previously funded things ahead of time, left over money in a category would just stay there when the month rolls over. 

So while other adjustments are to come, I’d be surprised if it would just what you (@optimist) mentioned. 

Powder Blue Pony 100% true, and that wouldn't be a feature I ever expect to see. I was referring more to the allusion made to goals having different timings on the color nags throughout the month for those who can't fund an entire month's worth at one time.

This situation actually sort of speaks to one of my issues... The BF gets paid every other week, so we get an influx that I budget out every other week. I just made notes in all my category names so I know how much to put into each of them. I've never bothered with goals because they don't fit into the rolling nature of his pay checks which never fall evenly in the month from one month to the next.

W R said:
I have a [$300] recurring biweekly expense

Have you considered a monthly contribution for $600 and a dedicated category for the 3rd payment that comes around every 6ish months (a True Expense)? Reallocate for the 3rd payment in a month.

I would do it directly in the normal category with a Monthly contribution goal of $650, assuming contributions start in the month following the 3x month.

W R I posted an example based on my experience in the main feed. Hope that helps. I love this feature, it is convenient!

Matthew  😉

Matthew thank you amazing insights. That's what I'm actually worried about. I'm so focused on those warnings.

Matthew Is a Needed for Spending--Monthly identical to Needed for Spending--By Date with a recurrence of 1 month (assuming the date is set to this month)?

It obviously won't work for another 2 weeks, so self-exploration is out.

Matthew Thanks for the reply and that makes sense! Just wasn't sure if I was missing something. Looking forward to all these new features! 

Matthew Foreshadowing 🤫

Matthew So it sounds like those who are 1 month head would want to select 1st for that field as opposed to "end of month"?

Matthew True. I was just trying to be more accurate based off of your foreshadowing you stated earlier :) For sake of this conv, I am 1 month ahead. 

RIP_MSMoney Actually this might be spending by date with repeat.

RIP_MSMoney I think it is target balance by date. It seems like it goes into maintenance mode after reaching the goal in the target month.

dakinemaui yeah but i want that repeating. :(

RIP_MSMoney It does repeat, sort of. After reaching the target, it would ask you to make up any shortage every month. If you want a longer makeup time, you need to provide more information.

In other words, I think it is repeating as much as is possible.

dakinemaui right, that make up duration is what I would want to control. Instead of "I need you to repay this back now", I would like another shorter add up to the final amount (like initially). 

So basically I am looking for a Savings goal with rate control as to not hit a budget too hard.

Matthew yes exactly. The closest I got to this would be to start with the category fully funded. They set the goal as Spending by date/repeat (lets say a couple months). You can use the funds up to that point and know you are good and no more will be added. When that date occurs, it starts the replenishing again. It is not perfect but feels close. Thoughts?

RIP_MSMoney I would just set a monthly contribution at the desired level and when the target is reached delete the goal. If you spend some of it, set a new goal whose contribution is in line with the then current priorities. Sometimes, I feel too much automation can make things clumsy.

RIP_MSMoney said:
that make up duration is what I would want to control.

You can control it. Just reset the goal, giving it your desired make up duration.

dakinemaui 

dakinemaui said:
Sometimes, I feel too much automation can make things clumsy.

 <standing ovation gif>

dakinemaui yeah i could do that. I was trying to remove those manual mental steps in the hopes of having the budget run automatically.  A more set and forget solution. I will try the spending goal first and see how that goals. All of my goals were monthly contrib until last night. I have been trying to branch out to other features to see if there is a way to save more.

Vibrant dakinemaui I agree on that too. Haven't even changed anything to the new goals, as up till now I've often changed goals again and again. And that usually turns out to be about priorities, not about mecanics.

RIP_MSMoney my guess would be Monday, because it's the Goal (budgeting assistance) that repeats. Time will tell...

Matthew The good thing Matthew is that you're passing the test. You get a gold star!

Matthew And students think there is no real-world application to what they're learning!

Granny Bogle what i did to start was all monthly contributions. What made me really like that was that I could click the underfunded button at the beginning of the month and bam, all categories were populated. This reduced so much extra effort in doing money at the beginning of the month. I instantly knew how much we were saving at the end and what my monthly need was. I have only recently started trying the other goals.

dakinemaui what my new plan is

1) before month ends, handle all bills and get those ready. They are future dates that will enter on the 2nd.

2) on the 1st, i release the funds from one month ahead and populate everything (since the month has officially started)

3) on 2nd, my bills register with ynab.

This is different from what i have been doing as i was able to do the first and second at the same time since i was never tied to the 1st of the month

It would be nice if you could "end" a month early so goals could reflect next month before it begins.

dakinemaui

That's it! It's unclear how to set a category goal if you have to search support documents to find out what happens at rollover time. I'm thinking this thread is going to become a lot more active around June 30. 

This whole thing is making me wonder if the "rollover" has become a dinosaur (like me :) People used to get out their checkbooks and pay their bills once a month. Now there are automated transactions--daily, weekly, bi-weekly, 5th week, monthly, semi-annual, annual, and even bi-annual. Savings, spending, transfers. Some are fixed. Some are variable. Some are unexpected. What's a grandma to do?

Get rid of the rollover? Hmmmmm...

😏

Matthew 

But isn't this a spending goal?

Matthew said:
Since your expense is charged biweekly, you could divide your annual total of the expenses by 12, and use that as your monthly goal amount. 

The simplicity is attractive, but that's likely to leave you short in the month that has 3 expenses. (It only works correctly if you start budgeting the annual/12 amount immediately following a 3-expense month AND it's 6 months until the next 3-expense month. I'd estimate 9 out of 10 people will be short on average.)

Until a biweekly goal is implemented, I'd recommend a monthly spend goal for 1/13 the annual (2 payments) and a dedicated category for the 3rd expense with its own Save by Date goal. Funds are reallocated to the normal category when needed.

Superbone yeah, i am very interested to see what next month looks like. I am bummed i cant see the full affect until the month rollover :(

it would be cool if there was a (at a min) "if nothing changed, here is what next months requirement would be". As it is now, i am needing to guess with a calc what i was abls to shave off for next month.

RIP_MSMoney Better would be not having to wait and the more obvious, "if you spend the amount remaining in this month's category, you will be exactly that much short next month." Hardly a surprise.

It's still amazing that YNAB apparently didn't realize the choice they made only serves to hurt those who wish to be proactive. Those who wish to wait to budget after the month changes would see identical behavior with either choice.

Matthew , is there any ongoing discussion by developers or have they all turned a blind eye to the repeated confusion?

Matthew I'd submit that it's less useful for people who budget into next month, as evidenced by the various replies here. At present they are forced to use a calculator or wait to budget, neither is very desirable.

I now see that this scenario that Alan described is driving things:

At the beginning of September, you’re budgeting for October. Must of your categories in September are full … so your October goals basically ask for nothing.

We therefore have a goal that is broken until the end of this month so that we don't have a goal that is broken 2+ months out. I wonder what proportion of users are in that position of budgeting that far out? I suspect most of those who might be choose NOT to budget out their income replacement fund for various reasons.

Thank you for articulating/reminding us of the vision. I don't agree with it, but it is helpful to understand.

dakinemaui I budget into the next month and still find this feature useful, so I wouldn't say it isn't (for everyone, at least). My process is to budget the full amount (using all goals so it is mostly just a single click) just to get an idea of what the next month looks like. But honestly I don't see it ever being much more than that - just to budget the additional money and get an idea and estimate what my next month looks like (to get to $0 TBB).

Once the month rolls over I just reset the entire month, and re-fund using my goals I have setup. Then anything left in the TBB gets put where I want it to be as now the month went from an estimate to being actually budgeted. Because I use goals it takes less than a minute to do. I definitely get the frustration with the goal type. Just sharing my process.  

What I think would be useful is having an indicator when you are using this goal type to show that a category is actually overfunded (or maybe just show to the right with the rest of the totals when you select categories). If it worked the same way "Underfunded" does and allowed a 1-click adjustment it would allow me to just be able to easily spot and re-allocate the overfunded categories. I can't think of any other way to handle this outside of having YNAB automatically keep re-distributing my funds as I spend - which I definitely would not want.

Salmon Piccolo I can appreciate your perspective and your workaround to re-budget. FWIW, it's not that I don't think it's useful. It's quite useful for anyone who wants to wait (or circle-back) once the month has arrived. My point is that implementing it the other way (acting immediately) wouldn't impact any of those users -- it would be just as useful for them.

In addition to those users, however, all the people who budgeted early wouldn't necessarily have to circle back. If they spent anything between when they budgeted and the end of the month, they would, of course, get an indication, and they would simply apply Rule 3 as normal. In other words, it would be better aligned with the methodology and established workflow.

Certainly an overfunded warning would initially allow more targeted adjustment under the current implementation. Unfortunately, that warning would be at odds with Rule 3 if you had to legitimately add funds to avoid overspending, and the user would then have to ignore the warning for the rest of the month. Having to ignore warnings is typically indicative of a poor design.

I do agree with you though. An overfunded warning band-aid on a flawed design is better than the flawed design alone.