When I first read it I was at the “able to tell you exactly how much money I had in my checking account.” stage, needing to log on practically every morning to check. Now I’ve only got a general idea of the amount.

Maybe it’s time I quit budgeting too! :)

Ivor.

One thought though … deposit your paycheck into 2-3 money market accounts that have up to 6 check writing privileges. Your money earns interest until the bill is paid. Well, someone I work with has done this for over 15 years, without a single problem yet.

I’ve kind of already done that. I have 1/2 of our monthly mortgage come out of each paycheck directly into our savings account. I gave our mortgage company permission to withdraw the mortgage payment on time from our savings account on a specific date.
Since we started that this year, that gives us a full extra mortgage payment in there as a buffer, because I get paid bi-weekly (26) paychecks, and only 24 paychecks are necessary to make sure the mortgage is paid throughout the year. Only 160 months to go until it’s paid in full (whoohooo)!

No, you’re not missing anything, you just need to take a step-by-step approach to YNAB until you can one day operate with a full ‘Buffer’ like the software seems to be rigidly tied to. Hint: It’s not. ;)

The good news is that although YNAB is designed to approach budgeting one month at a time while using money earned last month, you can get it to work with even though you may not yet have a full month’s worth of money built up. What will help you in the long run though would be to work your way up to budgeting the whole month out and if you can bear with me I’ll go over how to do just that briefly below.

The best way to approach your situation is to take what you have on hand now enter it as “Supplemental income” and budget it towards what you need to pay before you get paid again. Then when you do get paid again simply repeat the process. As long as you are able to budget aside even the smallest of amounts at the end of each budgeting session into a ‘Saving for the Buffer’ type category then you will be able to eventually save up enough money to equal an entire month’s worth of expenses – a full “Buffer” – and then budget using money earned in the previous month. Then, as the month goes by, you will tag any and all income as “Primary income” allowing the cycle to repeat forever removing you from the doubt and uncertainty of having to time paychecks and guess at how best to approach your budget.

In case you aren’t familiar with the terms that YNAB uses, “Supplemental & Primary income”, I’ve included a description of each type below.

Primary income is money that flows into your life (from any source and at any frequency) that the software earmarks as available to spend next month. You will not begin to enter income as Primary until you have a buffer in place or are near the end of the month and no longer need the money in this month.

Supplemental Income is money that flows into your life from any source and at any frequency that you decide needs to be made available right now in the current month to budget (assign it to be spent or saved) as needed. Until you have a buffer in place, ALL income should be entered as Supplemental unless, like above, you are near the end of the month and no longer need the money in this month. Then you can use Primary.

thanks!!!

sorry side tracked,

if you really are still bored to hell, feeling guilty about budgeting, the motivational speaker Anthony robbins spoke about some people who are being successful get to a point where they sabotage themselves because they are not used to that kind of mind set in your case i guess its the “spending money part even with all that wealth”.

You may have felt not deserve to live outside your means. You taught us to live within our means so one day we save enough that we can live the life we want. well at least not paycheck to paycheck.
A life full of excitement unpredictability, being a spendrift, giving out money like water or like there is no tommorrow, bringing out the child in us we so long repressed, to go where we want,when we want, whatever means we have or more nobly helping and donating to people WITHOUT saying to them “oh Here you go! Take this money and don’t worry about me because I’ve been efficient, I’ve sorted my budget! this piece of my pie has been waiting for you since last month!”
This is the pleasure(i hope so) of moving up or being successful after every good budget. but since you been conditioned overtime to budget rigorously and not spend(“spending = guilt”)you might not be used to live a little flambuoyantly even after you’ve moved up. you are experiencing what tony robbins call “approach/avoidance”… you think (most of the time unconsciously)that by spending you will gain pleasure but at the same time its pain because you might spend over your budget.
also kinda like a anorexic person felt about eating.(i wasn’t one but was on my way there at one point)

I say this from what i can derive from your post. this is just my view and maybe you find this useful maybe not. If not but still not satisfied then maybe I suggest you own Tony robbin’s Get the edge product if you havent already. You might find answers there to help you with this problem. this is the link on the product

http://www.tonyrobbins.com/Solutions/ProductsDetail.aspx?ProductID=761&SubCategory=Multimedia

The whole program also teaches a lot of very good tools. if you’d like to know more about the approach/avoidance stuff you can also email me.

well you might have already solved your problem by now so eventhough i’ve just spend about half an hour writing this maybe more then sorry for blabbing nonsense and I’d like to thanks for your program it’s been a real help, i’ll recommend ynab to everybody and live the ynab way!

cher

I just thought I’d let you know that I included this amusing post in the Carnival of Homeschooling today. It may not be directly homeschool-related, but money-management is definitely something that kids need to learn. You can see the post here: http://www.janice-campbell.com/2008/08/19/carnival-of-homeschooling-more-to-school-than-textbooks/

I have fallen off the wagon. I bought YNAB Pro last July, but fell of the wagon last year. I really want to be a budgeter again so I am getting back on starting tomorrow! I am really looking forward to it!

Thanks for your supportive tools!

Thanks, Jesse, for showing us the light at the end of the tunnel. And all the humor and good vibes it can bring!