YNAB You Need A Budget

[johnk3238]

Hello.
I make all my expenditures on a mileage points credit card. I pay off the balance to zero monthly and never owe interest. So, if I pay this from my checking account, how do I reconcile this with the budget program?
Thank you.

[brown685]

You have your credit card and checking account as part of the budget.

When you charge something to the card, your record it as a transaction to the credit card account. These should be categorized appropriately.

When you pay the credit card, you record the payment as a transfer from checking to the credit card. This transaction does not have a category.

This will make both accounts on budget, and you track your actual expenditures rather than just your credit card payment.

The only tricky part to this is your starting balance on your card. It is often recommended that this be categorized as "income available this month" so that the money does not show as available to budget, and you don't have to create a one time use category of credit card debt, in order to categorize these pre-existing charges.

James

[shandsh]

this is what I do and when ever the charge is made on the credit card I record it to my credit card account in YNAB (which is what I'd have done if I'd have used cash or my checking account anyway because I record all of my spending) and categorize the transaction to wherever it goes (telephone bill, clothes, etc) so then the money is "spent" already and is not available in my budget and I can't make a mistake and spend it again. When I pay the bill it's just an uncategorized transfer action from my checking to my credit card account.

[johnk3238]

thank you a lot. your comments were helpful!