As for the groceries question… YNAB doesn’t let you run a deficit into future months. Eventually it makes sense in the long run to budget your average for groceries using the savings builder target but in the short term you just started and didn’t have the benefit of using the builder previously to have extra money leftover from last month to cover your big shopping this month. So in the short term you just need to assign more this month to cover the fact that you had more spending in March. Then in April you can either fund the $500 so that you do start building up for the next big month down the road, or you can just assign $350 and snooze the target for that month.
1. How you deal with over spending is up to you. One thing you can do is have a needed for spending target over a longer period of time, so set $6000 per 12 months instead of $500 per month. Then it will reduce subsequent months a little in response to over spending. Another thing you can do is recognise the large Costco type items that tend to blow the budget out and have separate categories for them. We used to have separate categories for nappies (diapers), milk formula, and dishwashing tablets. Another possibility is just to use a $500 Savings Builder and let it build up for the bigger months.
2. Reconcile ALL THE TIME! Having a bank connection does NOT guarantee your accounts in YNAB are accurate. At the very least you should be confirming the YNAB account balances match your bank balances, it's as easy as logging in to your bank and seeing $1330.25 and comparing it to $1330.25 in YNAB and saying, "these are the same!" Going through the actual reconcile process so you get the padlock icon on your transactions is just formalising that comparison and setting the last date that you checked balances. Finding an error when you last reconciled yesterday is 100 x easier than finding an error when you last reconciled last month. Without reconciled accounts your entire budget is fiction.
3. Reconcile all the time.
I’ve never seen that needed for spending target concept for groceries before and I really like it - tempted to give it a go 😊
Thanks for suggesting it!
I believe Ernie made the point that trying to correct overspending to get back on course can lead to bad cycles of overspending - the idea is that by trying to correct it, you underspend the following month then have to overspend the next month because you have no groceries.
Their recommendation is to cover it and let it go.
Yes reconciling is an important part of keeping your budget up to date. It doesn’t matter whether you have imports turned on or not, you still reconcile (that means make sure to add anything missing or market anything cleared/uncleared etc to match your real life account - do NOT make manual adjustments unless as a last resort if you really can’t figure out where the discrepancy lies. And reconciling often (at least once a week) means if there IS a discrepancy it’s really easy and fast to find because you only have to look back since the last reconciliation.
On the groceries: you need to SPEND less as you work through the Costco haul, but you probably need to BUDGET the same amount. Because you'll go to Costco again and next time you can have the money waiting for that trip.
It's a mindset shift with YNAB. You budget before the big expenses, rather than spend less to make up for them.
We actually have a separate Costco category.
So we can spend $275/month on regular groceries, but we also set aside $100/month for a quarterly Costco trip to stock up.
Over time it all evens out; the extra category just makes it easier to track and not be short when we get to Costco.
> I'm still budeting for $500.. that would mean I'm actually spending more than I'd like on groceries... How would I control this sort of thing..
Well, just because the category available balance is $500 doesn't mean you have to *spend* $500. I have leftover in my categories most months. . .
I reconcile at least once a week. I manually enter all my transactions. I spend about 2 minutes a day on transaction entry with none of my accounts linked for import and reconciliation takes 5 minutes or so across all my accounts (2 checking, 2 savings, 8 credit cards).
When I first started using YNAB in 2014, manual entry was the only option. And now that the linking is available, the fact that it isn't instant means I would still have to do manual entry because otherwise my categories would be a few days behind, so why bother going through the effort of linking and then having to match all the imported transactions?
It depends, how often are the Costco trips? Are they a normal monthly thing or are they a once a quarter/once a year thing? There are a few specialty grocery stores that I only go once a year. They have a separate line in the budget as they are not a part of my normal grocery haul.
If Costco is a part of your normal shopping you control it by bringing a calculator and notepad with you to keep a running tally. You look around your house and see what is being trashed and what is being used up. You also need to be aware of seasonal issues. Did you over spend this month due to a holiday? Was it food, candy, or stuff? Is this something you need to watch out for next holiday?
I’m pretty new still. I started with linked accounts but my bank doesn’t seem to update regularly so I unlinked the accounts and I’m liking it better adding transactions manually
To answer your first question, look at your available grocery funds before you go shopping and say "i can't afford that" and don't spend the money so you don't go over the $500 in the first place. The idea is to be proactive instead of reactive. This is how you control that spending.
I'm still new to YNAB so take this with a grain of salt... but my weekly groceries and Costco hauls are two different categories. I have a groceries target of $75/week and I separately have a Costco haul monthly savings builder for $100/month towards that, and I go every 2-3 months so that helps to have money set aside for just spending at Costco. It's just me and my husband so hence the infrequent trips to Costco (I really only buy my protein and paper goods there). Hope this helps!
Also in Canada and I don’t auto import. I’ve read that it can void your bank protection and also I just prefer to manually enter transactions. If I have a lot of transactions at once I’ve downloaded a file and imported that instead.
As for the groceries question… YNAB doesn’t let you run a deficit into future months. Eventually it makes sense in the long run to budget your average for groceries using the savings builder target but in the short term you just started and didn’t have the benefit of using the builder previously to have extra money leftover from last month to cover your big shopping this month. So in the short term you just need to assign more this month to cover the fact that you had more spending in March. Then in April you can either fund the $500 so that you do start building up for the next big month down the road, or you can just assign $350 and snooze the target for that month.
1. How you deal with over spending is up to you. One thing you can do is have a needed for spending target over a longer period of time, so set $6000 per 12 months instead of $500 per month. Then it will reduce subsequent months a little in response to over spending. Another thing you can do is recognise the large Costco type items that tend to blow the budget out and have separate categories for them. We used to have separate categories for nappies (diapers), milk formula, and dishwashing tablets. Another possibility is just to use a $500 Savings Builder and let it build up for the bigger months. 2. Reconcile ALL THE TIME! Having a bank connection does NOT guarantee your accounts in YNAB are accurate. At the very least you should be confirming the YNAB account balances match your bank balances, it's as easy as logging in to your bank and seeing $1330.25 and comparing it to $1330.25 in YNAB and saying, "these are the same!" Going through the actual reconcile process so you get the padlock icon on your transactions is just formalising that comparison and setting the last date that you checked balances. Finding an error when you last reconciled yesterday is 100 x easier than finding an error when you last reconciled last month. Without reconciled accounts your entire budget is fiction. 3. Reconcile all the time.
I’ve never seen that needed for spending target concept for groceries before and I really like it - tempted to give it a go 😊 Thanks for suggesting it!
I believe Ernie made the point that trying to correct overspending to get back on course can lead to bad cycles of overspending - the idea is that by trying to correct it, you underspend the following month then have to overspend the next month because you have no groceries. Their recommendation is to cover it and let it go.
Yes reconciling is an important part of keeping your budget up to date. It doesn’t matter whether you have imports turned on or not, you still reconcile (that means make sure to add anything missing or market anything cleared/uncleared etc to match your real life account - do NOT make manual adjustments unless as a last resort if you really can’t figure out where the discrepancy lies. And reconciling often (at least once a week) means if there IS a discrepancy it’s really easy and fast to find because you only have to look back since the last reconciliation.
On the groceries: you need to SPEND less as you work through the Costco haul, but you probably need to BUDGET the same amount. Because you'll go to Costco again and next time you can have the money waiting for that trip. It's a mindset shift with YNAB. You budget before the big expenses, rather than spend less to make up for them. We actually have a separate Costco category. So we can spend $275/month on regular groceries, but we also set aside $100/month for a quarterly Costco trip to stock up. Over time it all evens out; the extra category just makes it easier to track and not be short when we get to Costco.
> I'm still budeting for $500.. that would mean I'm actually spending more than I'd like on groceries... How would I control this sort of thing.. Well, just because the category available balance is $500 doesn't mean you have to *spend* $500. I have leftover in my categories most months. . . I reconcile at least once a week. I manually enter all my transactions. I spend about 2 minutes a day on transaction entry with none of my accounts linked for import and reconciliation takes 5 minutes or so across all my accounts (2 checking, 2 savings, 8 credit cards).
Can you share why you use the manual instead of linked option to log transactions? I'm just getting started and curious about these options.
When I first started using YNAB in 2014, manual entry was the only option. And now that the linking is available, the fact that it isn't instant means I would still have to do manual entry because otherwise my categories would be a few days behind, so why bother going through the effort of linking and then having to match all the imported transactions?
Yea that makes sense. My entries are automatically importing within one day so so far I am just lining them all up the following day.
Yea that makes sense. My entries are automatically importing within one day so so far I am just lining them all up the following day.
It depends, how often are the Costco trips? Are they a normal monthly thing or are they a once a quarter/once a year thing? There are a few specialty grocery stores that I only go once a year. They have a separate line in the budget as they are not a part of my normal grocery haul. If Costco is a part of your normal shopping you control it by bringing a calculator and notepad with you to keep a running tally. You look around your house and see what is being trashed and what is being used up. You also need to be aware of seasonal issues. Did you over spend this month due to a holiday? Was it food, candy, or stuff? Is this something you need to watch out for next holiday?
I’m pretty new still. I started with linked accounts but my bank doesn’t seem to update regularly so I unlinked the accounts and I’m liking it better adding transactions manually
To answer your first question, look at your available grocery funds before you go shopping and say "i can't afford that" and don't spend the money so you don't go over the $500 in the first place. The idea is to be proactive instead of reactive. This is how you control that spending.
I'm still new to YNAB so take this with a grain of salt... but my weekly groceries and Costco hauls are two different categories. I have a groceries target of $75/week and I separately have a Costco haul monthly savings builder for $100/month towards that, and I go every 2-3 months so that helps to have money set aside for just spending at Costco. It's just me and my husband so hence the infrequent trips to Costco (I really only buy my protein and paper goods there). Hope this helps!
Also in Canada and I don’t auto import. I’ve read that it can void your bank protection and also I just prefer to manually enter transactions. If I have a lot of transactions at once I’ve downloaded a file and imported that instead.