YNAB You Need A Budget

[juliette1677]

One thing that I would add, however, is that there is a funny error that I get all the time when I import my CSV files - YNAB always (well, almost always) thinks the date in the last row of data is in the wrong format. I have to go back into the file, retype the date and resave the document - sometimes more than once - before it will import successfully. I enter data into YNAB via CSV import, so I just deal with it, but thought maybe you could figure out what the bug is...

Thanks!

[Taytay]

That's really strange...What are you using to edit the CSV files? Are you using Excel?
When you go back and edit the last row, does it ever look any different than the others to you? If it happens again, please contact me here via private message, and I'll investigate further. Thanks!

[gregdo]

My credit card company, CitiBank Canada, only offers CSV downloads so that is what I use. It works well.

- Greg

[lebdavidson2]

I use the Quicken format when I import. So I've never worked with csv importing.

[CrazyIvan]

I always use the Money format, because I use Money. My CU offers Quicken and CSV formats as well.

[nik]

I have a question for those of you that have been entering the transactions daily:
Don't you think that this is too much?
I mean - to have a budget in really MUST but to spend every day time on it.. hmm it sounds bad for me. It is like making it part of your daily life and maybe I'm wrong but don't you thing that this is almost addiction
Do not get me wrong I'm admiring your affords and the will to spend time on your goals!
But the money never be the most important thing and spending daily time on counting them sounds a little bit disturbing for me...

Please prove me wrong ... if I am

I need a discipline for my budgeting but do I need really to go over it daily?

P.S. I will use the imports that you have when I need them(in some cases csv) just because it saves a lot of time. This was one of the first things that I've checked after the principles of the budgeting. The software must make my life easier not just eat up my personal time.

[YYC27]

I have a question for those of you that have been entering the transactions daily:
Don't you think that this is too much?
I mean - to have a budget in really MUST but to spend every day time on it.. hmm it sounds bad for me. It is like making it part of your daily life and maybe I'm wrong but don't you thing that this is almost addiction
Do not get me wrong I'm admiring your affords and the will to spend time on your goals!
But the money never be the most important thing and spending daily time on counting them sounds a little bit disturbing for me...

Please prove me wrong ... if I am

I need a discipline for my budgeting but do I need really to go over it daily?

P.S. I will use the imports that you have when I need them(in some cases csv) just because it saves a lot of time. This was one of the first things that I've checked after the principles of the budgeting. The software must make my life easier not just eat up my personal time.

I don't necessarily open up YNAB every day, but I do try and enter in my receipts as soon as I have some free time.

First, I find that it only takes a minute or two to enter in a couple receipts. I don't have to set asside a block of time to do it. If I saved up my receipts, I would need to set asside the neccessary time to enter them all in.

Second, the purchases are still fresh in my mind. Some receipts are really vague, and if I've left it for a while, I may not remember exactly what it was that I had bought. Costco's a big "what the heck was that?" store. I buy more than just groceries there, so I can't just lump it all into one category.

And third, having up-to-date figures helps me to make sure I'm actually sticking to my budget.

[Patzer]

I need a discipline for my budgeting but do I need really to go over it daily?

No. You only need to go over it on days when you spend money or make decisions to spend money. And on those decision days, you need up to date information so you can make good decisions.

That's an inescapable reason I don't download. Downloads are too slow. If I'm going grocery shopping on Saturday morning, I need to know Saturday morning how much I have remaining in the grocery category. Monday morning when Friday's purchases post to my account is too slow.

There are other reasons I don't download, but there is no workaround for this one.

Patzer

[abcwick]

That's an inescapable reason I don't download. Downloads are too slow. If I'm going grocery shopping on Saturday morning, I need to know Saturday morning how much I have remaining in the grocery category. Monday morning when Friday's purchases post to my account is too slow.

Patzer

FWIW, this is exactly the same reason why I don't download. I like to reflect something in YNAB as soon as it's spent, not when the bank says it's spent. However, that's just personal choice. If you do want to download and import, YNAB just keeps getting smoother and smoother for this.

Al

[ossavir]

Perhaps I'm a little late on this one, but I use CSV importing all the time.

For our supplemental income, my wife and I automatically split it into 5 different categories. We receive the extra income into a specific "income" category (it shows up as a negative outflow).

I then go into Excel and use some formulas to automatically create line items to be imported into YNAB. The first line item always "spends" the balance of the income from the income category. The subsequent items create inflow items into multiple budget categories. Then I save this as a CSV file (which usually takes a little cleaning up in notepad to make work).

I import the CSV file into a "Budget Transactions" register in YNAB.

This procedure works great and I'm glad it's there. If I figure out a way to modify the xml file directly, I might choose to do that instead, but we'll see.

[WairereRose]

I have a question for those of you that have been entering the transactions daily:
Don't you think that this is too much?

Daily - when I spend daily. But there are days when I don't spend, and those days I don't enter anything. More importantly, when I first started budgeting there would be more transactions than there are now simply because I was not used to thinking about what I spent. As I got used to inputting the receipts, I began to think more about making the entries and it helped me reduce my spending. Manual entry has saved me a lot of money by helping me stay focussed on my budget.

I mean - to have a budget in really MUST but to spend every day time on it.. hmm it sounds bad for me. It is like making it part of your daily life and maybe I'm wrong but don't you thing that this is almost addiction

I think many of us here will happily admit to being 'addicted' to watching our finances. This is part of the 'gazelle intense' approach described by Dave Ramsey. Many of us have started out using YNAB heavily in debt, and are on a path to clear that debt and have savings. If that involves daily 'practice', then that is no bad thing. Any exercise program requires regular effort, and a financial exercise is no different to a physical exercise or a mental exercise, a spiritual exercise, or a nutritional exercise (now that's a better term than diet right?).

Do not get me wrong I'm admiring your affords and the will to spend time on your goals!
But the money never be the most important thing and spending daily time on counting them sounds a little bit disturbing for me...

Please prove me wrong ... if I am

I need a discipline for my budgeting but do I need really to go over it daily?

If you're spending daily, then yes, look at it daily. If you spend only every second day, then every second day will still keep you focussed. I find that I now deliberately open my YNAB file generally only 2-3 times a week, on payday so I can record the rent as I pay it, whatever day I go shopping or fuel for the car, and the day the ice-cream truck comes around and my daughter asks if I can buy her an ice-cream.

P.S. I will use the imports that you have when I need them(in some cases csv) just because it saves a lot of time. This was one of the first things that I've checked after the principles of the budgeting. The software must make my life easier not just eat up my personal time.

If importing is saving you time but costing you money through disassociating you from your budget, then you are having to spend time earning that money - maybe it is not saving you time at all. I challenge you to give manual entry a try for 2 weeks and see if it doesn't make a difference to your spending patterns. But get yourself some history with the importing first, so you can see just how much you really can save by 'spending' a little extra time doing things manually.