YNAB You Need A Budget

[Empulse]

...were any of the existing videos too long?

Actually, they were right on target (time wise) for covering the topic. There needs to be some length to them to cover the topic in a semi-complete manner.
I just had this vision of a terrific tutorial that lasts 25 minutes long, seeing some cool tip not covered elsewhere, then being extremely frustrated that I can't find it again.
A suggestion? If you write up a script to follow, you could post it as a 'transcript' of sorts for the video. Would be helpful to cut-and-paste parts that someone would want to keep,
and also functions as a guideline for you while narrating your videos. It wouldn't have to be word for word, necessarily - you could bullet point the relevant points.

Just a thought. I always like the 2 birds/1 stone concept

Empulse

[malisab]

I'm quoting a post by Ginger from a thread on the Pro forum.

Also, I would recommend you don't tie the name of the category to the name or type of account. Maybe call the category Emergency Fund, or you could create multiple categories for that $500, say half is Emergency Fund and half is New Car or maybe Christmas Fund.

In YNAB the account registers describe where your money sits, and the category balances describe what the money is for (its job). If you get that additional $300 and you allocate it to the Emergency Fund category there is no need to move the money to the savings account (but you can if you want to). It can sit in your checking and the budget side of YNAB knows that it is set aside for that. You'd have an $800 emergency fund, with $500 sitting in a savings account and $300 in the checking. As long as you use the budget remaining balances to make spending decisions rather than your bank account balances, the $300 will sit and wait in your checking until you are ready to spend.

I don't think I 'got' that until I was using YNAB for a while. I was all excited to open an ING account so I could have all the named subaccounts. Then at some point I realized that I didn't need that feature anymore, I've got YNAB. I also frequently hear 'old timers' suggest to newbies not to have category names and account names that are the same. That might be suggested in tutorials/documentation as well (or maybe it already is and I just wasn't ready to learn it at the time.)

[steve.rook]

I profited enormously from the Pro videos. I, as another poster, tend to immerse myself in something when I try to begin to use it.

I think that one area that could be of use, especially to veteran electronic check-books types, is handling those inevitable budget over-runs. Mechanically, they're easy to do. Philosophically is the area I fight with all the time. For example, is it better to wait till the end of the month and handle all the transfers at once, or do them as you encounter them? Is it better to create a "transaction" in the register to track the transfer or "just go do it" in the budget window with adds and subtracts in the Budgeted column? Sometimes I am not able to work the differences until the month is over and the reconciliation with the statement has been done. How can I effectively handle those overruns at that late time? I know that "3" will allow negative balance transfers to the next month. That will be a bit of a help for me, but I don't always want to do that.

Another thing I deal with is using a separate savings account for the "pay it later" items like auto ins, home ins, etc. Some tips on coordinating the physical transfer of funds at the bank with the transfer of funds between YNAB accounts and categories could be helpful.

Most of what I seem to be encountering is probably more along the line of tips for veterans as opposed to new-comers.

Thanks to your videos, I was able to jump right into adopting YNAB Pro. I look forward to all the new stuff y'all will have out there.

[womandriver]

One thing that I think that might help some beginners is special sequences of videos based on financial circumstances and preferences...

If you have enough money for a full buffer from the start then go to video A otherwise go to video B.
If you want to track your day to day cash spending, watch C otherwise watch D.

YNAB can be a lot to wrap your head around, so being able to target only pertinent videos can get someone up and running faster and then they can go back and watch the videos for the other situations when they have time or when their circumstances change.

I totally agree with this. As someone new to YNAB and starting with no buffer at all it would be great to see in action how to deal with the situation step by step. How things change weekly as a paycheck comes in etc.

I love all the support and tutorials available!

[MacGuy]

I've only recently discovered YNAB and have been anxiously awaiting YNAB3 since I am a Mac person. Though I'm not currently using YNAB, I've gone through most of the video tutorials already (a little obsessive? Maybe). I wanted to get a feel for how YNAB works. I think the tutorials are great. They really clarified a lot of the ins and outs of the program for me. I also think that the length of the videos is appropriate. It's nice to have the info in bite-sized chunks so I could move from one topic to another at my own pace.

All that being said, I love the idea of a getting started with YNAB3 or YNAB3-for-dummies type of video for us new converts. The idea someone posted of a "how to work the YNAB rules when you're starting out in debt" step-by-step series would be great for me as well.

Thanks for the videos that already exist, which have helped convince me that YNAB is just what I need, and thanks for being proactive in seeking comments for the new training videos. Smart move.

[rudeboyrg]

Do you know if the live webinar works on Linux with Firefox?

[Mudie]

MacGuy,
Erin is hard at work on a whole suite of brand new YNAB 3 videos so you will see those as soon as she can get them in place. On her behalf I have to say Thank You very much for your comments! We're always glad when the efforts that we do to make YNAB easier to learn and use are recognized.

rudeboyrg,
Unfortunately no, GoToMeeting which is the service that we use to host the classes, does not support Linux. However all is not lost as we do have a recording of the class that you can download here that only lacks the live interaction of course.

Steve

[lebdavidson2]

what about creating a fictional YNAB user - maybe modeled after a real one! - who faced all the usual challenges at the outset (no buffer, already owing next month more than they earn, credit card debt, no savings, lumpy expenses like Christmas or car insurance not accounted for ahead of time, etc, etc) and create a tutorial showing the step-by-step, paycheck-by-paycheck actions they took to solve this, and what exactly did they do in the YNAB software that helped them. Of course it would stretch out over several months but it could be set up to demonstrate the upcoming months during the same video (instead of a video series).xraymd

I really like this idea. The videos show separate pieces, but I would have gotten it more quickly if I got a whole overview.