YNAB You Need A Budget

[madman74]

Hey guys,

FIrst of all, still love the software. Amazing. I have become a bit of a walking advertisement to my firends about it. Cabn't say enough good things.

So, now I am just being picky....

I would LOVE it if within a month there was an option for me to establish my Paycheck schedule. For instance, if I get paid every two weeks, it would be AMAZING if there would be two columns tht would pop up for check 1 and check 2 for that month instead of one agregated column to put my budget dollars in. Sometimes, I need to have different amounts go places from different paychecks. Also, twice a year, there would be three columns (because it would result in three paychecks).

OR, if i got paid monthly, there would be the one column as there is now.

Just feel this would help me evaluate my budgeting and income even more than I can now.

Thanks for listening.

[Joel]

I would structure my categories in a way that there were three master paychecks: one for each paycheck, and a third that overlaps both.

[DeguelloTex]

Having an outflow column for each pay period does seem a lot more straightforward -- for people who specifically turn on the option to meet their needs -- than artificially structuring categories, though. All the more so for new, or old, users who are trying to budget without a buffer.

[Tif_Ann]

I've seen this request before, and I don't quite understand it. If you are budgeting the funds when you receive them (and not in advance), how does it help to have it separated out? I can see the category thing, if you need a reminder of what bills are budgeted out of each paycheck, but for things like groceries, I don't see the point. You get paycheck one, you budget what you can to groceries, you spend according to your category balance, you get paycheck two and you budget more money to groceries, and again, spend according to your category balance. It wouldn't matter when the money comes in then.

Perhaps an example of how this would work/be helpful would help me understand better?

[litterbug]

Not being the OP I'll just jump in and guess. The option of setting up master categories for check 1 and check 2 are laid out in the Creative Category Organization tutorial (http://www.youneedabudget.com/support/video/creative-category-organization. It's just one of the many kinds of category structures you can set up for yourself. The one that's best for you is the one that makes sense to you.

I get paid biweekly, and BB (before buffer) I simply budgeted biweekly. In my mind, it was much more straightforward than the paycheck 1 and paycheck 2 approach (again it worked for me). When I started YNAB, of course, I just budgeted the money on hand that was left from the previous paycheck (which was pretty much nothing ). When my next paycheck came, I budgeted as much money into rainy day funds that was needed to reach the target amount by the target date. I budgeted about half of my rent and other big expenses out of each paycheck. Then I added enough into my daily spending categories to cover my needs until the next paycheck.

Essentially, I just budgeted each paycheck to zero, adding to categories as appropriate to cover me for the next few weeks, and ignored the monthly calendar for budgeting purposes.