YNAB You Need A Budget

[christinebauer]

Is there a way in YNAB that I can track what each bill is and when it is due without showing negative in my budget? Right now, I have a spread sheet with each payday laid out and what bills have to be paid - In this spreadsheet, I am able to do all of my paychecks and bills for the year. It would be nice it there was a place I could put it in YNAB so I can manage what is coming up due and what needs to be paid. Does that make any sense? I could insert a screen shot of my spreadsheet, I think... if what I'm writing doesn't make sense...

[Malisa]

There's the scheduler at the bottom of each register. There happens to be a new tutorial video on it. use the link in my signature to find it.

You may find it adequate. I do. But I think sometimes people who are paid more frequently and are fairly close to the edge need a spreadsheet as well. Alternatively, different category arrangement along with the scheduler may do it. Watch the category organization video as well, if you haven't.

[Budget_Ninja]

We used to have a spread sheet with bill due dates and amounts that we used until we had a full buffer. We liked it that way in the beginning because we could easily see how we should apply the money we had. We don't use it now and just utilize the scheduler & budget.

We determine our non monthly items for each category and manage them thru the notes. Our category notes indicate how much to put in the category each month, we also place notes in the individual cells some times to list out what needs to be purchased that month.

YNAB will let you manage what is coming due in the budget when you have the money available. I find that it's more of a money management tool thru zero based budgeting than long term budget tool. We keep a yearly budget in Excel that we do in January, but only used it to help come up with some of our notes & scheduled transactions.

[topcat]

For monthly bills the category is named "dd Category $$". That is, day of month due, category name, usual budget amount. While, scheduling and budgeting isn't a problem, I still like to see when things are due to make sure the auto-payments are working correctly. I also like to know the base budget so that I can easily see when I've either played WAM or unexpected outlays happened during the month.