YNAB You Need A Budget

[jreedar]

For a simple example to verify I'm understanding and doing this the correct way, say I import my transactions from my bank and go through them and assign them to the appropriate budgeted category and they all are in my checking account.

When finished I switch back to the budget screen and notice my 'eating out' category is overdrawn by $20. I budgeted $60, had an outflow of $80 so the category balance is -$20. I like to keep everything balanced so say my 'gas' category under 'Transportation' has $200 in it and I feel comfortable taking the $20 from this category so would I just click the 'gas' $200 amount and select 'Show calculator' and subtract $20 and then go to the 'eating out' category and click 'Show calculator' and add $20 to now get rid of the negative category balance I had in 'eating out'? The draw back to this method is that you'd lose your original budgeted values for that month to carry forward to the next month.

Thanks,
Neal

[malisab]

All correct.

But it's even easier than that. You don't have to click show calculator. Just click into the desired cell and hit + or - and the calculator will come up.

[jreedar]

All correct.

But it's even easier than that. You don't have to click show calculator. Just click into the desired cell and hit + or - and the calculator will come up.

Thanks Malisa for answering my question and the shortcut to bring up the calculator! This forum and the people really add so much to the software, thanks again.

Neal

[chrish]

The draw back to this method is that you'd lose your original budgeted values for that month to carry forward to the next month.

Another 'trick' many users do is to store their 'normal' budget in the next month. So we are currently in March, I have my normal budget stored in April. Before I start actually budgeting for April (probably in late March), I use quick budget to move the normal budget to May, then begin editing April.

[jreedar]

The draw back to this method is that you'd lose your original budgeted values for that month to carry forward to the next month.

Another 'trick' many users do is to store their 'normal' budget in the next month.

I just got a chance to try that 'trick' Chris and that solves my problem, thank you so much for the help!