YNAB You Need A Budget

[a3love]

hello all.

i just started using ynab 3 the beginning of march. i entered in the my starting balances for my checking & savings. no problems there.

the starting balance in my savings account is $450.

In my budget page, i have a category named Savings - Savings Account. Since ynab considers my $450 starting balance in my savings account as income available this month to budget, do i:

(1) need to enter at least $450 in my budget category savings account, so those dollars are accounted for;
(2) leave it blank unless i plan to transfer extra $ to that account this month. i.e., i would enter in $200 if i want to transfer $200 to my savings account in the month of march;
(3) completely delete that budget category all together;
(4) something else entirely? help!?

I get ynab pretty well for checking account. I understand the budget and the leftover amounts, etc., Its just this savings account thing that is giving me the most problems.

FYI - i don't pay any bills out of my savings account. Its basically just there to transfer $ into, and transfer $ out of, if I need too. That is why i'm wondering if i should just delete that budget category all together? If I delete it, but still transfer $ back and forth out of my registers, will it work?

I hope i'm making sense! thanks in advance for the replies!

ashley

[sarahspangles]

Why not just deleter the category for the savings account so the starting balance isn't "Available This Month"? It will be still be shown as part of your Buffer rolling from month to month. I agree you probably don't need a category specially for savings unless you decide to have a savings account off-Budget, say for really long-term savings.

[rollercoaster]

Right now you have your Savings account set up as "On Budget", so in that case, you would budget the total amount to your savings category.

The other thing you could do is go and remove the category "Income available this month" and leave it blank in your saving account register. This would effectively take your savings account "Off Budget". In that instance, that $450 is hidden from your 'available to budget' amount so you would not need to do anything in your budget screen with it. Then you would only use that line item in your budget when you wanted to put more money into the savings from your checking ~ as if you were paying a bill.

[rollercoaster]

I forgot to answer the second part of your question: Transferring money.

1) If you plan to transfer money IN to your savings account, you will need a line item in your budget to match that.
2) IF your savings account is Off Budget, you WILL categorize the transaction in your checking account to match whatever your line item name is ~ just like paying a bill when you put money in to savings.
3) IF you transfer money out of savings to your checking, you will again need to categorize on the checking side only. Either as Income Available, or directly to whichever line item you plan to spend the money on.

If you decide to keep your savings account on budget, with a starting budgeted amount in your "savings account" line item, then you don't categorize transactions between accounts.

[a3love]

thank you so much!

the replies helped tremendously.

i took deleted the "income available to budget this month" from my starting balance line in the savings register. that, right there, helped me so much.

now, when i "transfer" funds from my checking to my savings, i will:

(1) enter it into the check register and categorize it as personal:savings account (or whatever) so it ends up looking just like a bill. is that right? and if i do that, will i need to go into the savings register and enter an inflow amount, so the balance continues to match up?

thanks again!!!

[rollercoaster]

When you do a transfer YNAB will show the outflow from checking and the inflow to savings.