YNAB You Need A Budget

[roxrochelle]

Hello.
I am new to YNAB, but so far so good - i think.
Anyhoo... my paychecks are at the mid- and end-points of each month - and it seems to line up with the YNAB philosophies to make that end-point paycheck actually apply to the next month. So i moved the paycheck from 11/30 into Income Avail Next Month (Nov is the first month of YNAB for me). Problem is... it doesn't show anywhere in December. In fact, it doesn't show anywhere in income anymore. Where did it go?

It is important to note that that particular paycheck is split between 2 categories - as that check included a one-time 'atta-boy' extra in it and that sort of thing has its own category. If this is in fact a bug, that might be relevant.

Thought i would check here first before pinging support anyway.

Any thoughts anyone?
Thanks!

[Will]

I'm confused. Why are you dealing with November checks and December now? Budgets are about what is going to happen, not what has happened already. Like I said though, I'm confused, so maybe you are talking about something else.

[Malisa]

Hi, I think I can help unravel the mystery of the disappearing money.

Screen Shot 2012-01-01 at 6.51.52 PM.png (18.22 KiB) Viewed 546 times

It should be in the bottom of November (you might have to click the triangle to make it show). It'll be in the black line that says Income Available Next Month and gets rolled into Your YNAB Buffer for Dec.

Post back if you're not seeing that.

[roxrochelle]

Oh! Sure enough... there it is. Thanks so much!
I see they roll it into the buffer before moving on to the next month. not entirely sure how i feel about that though. I am (very) blessed to have a sufficient buffer - but i am the type that likes to segregate the money a bit more strongly than that. I have no intention of budgeting that buffer away (though recent events mean we are spending chunks of it anyway....) - i am not entirely convinced about including the buffer in any of the "available to budget" slots. I guess my goal is more to try to get budget (and therefore outgoing) to match the actual income (what we get paid every month) again.

I just started this late December - and imported back to November so that i could have a running record of income/outgoing to work from. I was also able to use Nov to carry-in the accumulations of the previous year for the one-time entries (HOA fee, etc) - so that December could look as normal as possible. I thought it would help in my evaluation of the tool as that only lasts a month. But in this way, Nov does not look like a typical month whatsoever. But also, making adjustments with paychecks, etc at the beginning prevents any income hiccups in reporting if i decide later another way is more appropriate (e.g. check on 30Nov pays for stuff in Dec). I want to get all that settled early in the process and have been ruminating on this question for a couple of days.

So, the new question - and is less about the tool (and therefore can move to a different topic if required): what if i took the starting balance and instead of just letting the tool drop it into income on that first month - move it to long term savings right off the bat?

Thanks again!

[litterbug]

To answer the question, it doesn't matter where the money is, so long as it's available to spend. This is because it's not actually savings; it's where your paychecks go to wait to be spent next month.

To answer the question I want to answer, what you're talking about is a concern that you won't let money sit. This is a skill, and a critical one for YNAB-ers. It's one of the keys to the security of having rainy day funds, emergency funds, and other designated reserves all sitting there, waiting to be spent. The idea is to get away from the illusion of security that physically 'segregating' money gives us (I say us because most of us have tried it and failed). Instead, you let money sit. Here's a link to a famous post by Patzer about letting money sit.

I don't think I can add anything to that!