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More YNAB thoughts

April 4th, 2018 at 12:00 pm

I'm really loving YNAB. I can tell it's definitely changing my mindset. I had a really bad day yesterday and was so tempted to stop and get Easter candy to stress eat. But I have no money in the grocery budget until it gets funded on Friday. I could WAM money from another category, but I'm trying not to do that unless necessary and Easter candy isn't that.

I thought I'd messed up somewhere with regards to my main CC, but I got it figured out. I'd actually made two payments from my personal account, meaning that when the YNAB subscription I'd budgeted hit, it would eat into the money designated as my buffer in that account. However, I'd paid YNAB with a CC, so it just made that money available for payment. Since the account doesn't matter, I can pay it out of our joint account which was where the extra $50 payment for the main CC should have come from in the first place.

It's nice to be able to leave the money sitting in my account to keep the average daily balance above the minimum and avoid maintenance charges. At the same time, there's no temptation to spend because I can see that every dollar is already accounted for.

On Friday, I'll have the NFL Points CC paid off and most of the categories for April topped off. My two current goals are debt payoff and building up to a one month buffer. I almost wonder if it's worth delaying debt payoff for a month or two to build the buffer first and then go back to debt payoff. But I really like knocking some stuff off, and I can knock out two more debts in the next month or two.

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

4 Responses to “More YNAB thoughts”

  1. creditcardfree Says:
    April 4th, 2018 at 12:18 pm 1522844333
    1522844333

    So glad to hear that YNAB is working for you! My husband seems to regularly make mistakes on his entries, usually which account was used. I find transactions in checking when he put it on a credit card for example. It takes me awhile to figure out why the account won't balance!

  2. CB in the City Says:
    April 4th, 2018 at 01:44 pm 1522849453
    1522849453

    I think you should build up a buffer before you fully attack credit card debt. It will help you keep from using credit.

  3. Debt-free by Thir-ty Says:
    April 4th, 2018 at 01:44 pm 1522849462
    1522849462

    Yeah, that's another reason that I like having it import. I was just confused because it said I had $57 available to pay to the CC and I'd already made the $50 payment I had planned to take out of my account. But my BOA still had an extra $50 in it (which was supposed to be for YNAB), so I made the payment thinking it never picked up for whatever. If I hadn't paid with the credit card, I would have had to just take the $50 out of our NavyFed and put it in my BOA to get that account back to the $100 buffer. Theoretically, with YNAB, I can remove the buffer or combine the accounts, but for now, I like keeping the buffer and separate accounts.

    The online version is a little harder with CC management, but now that it's clicking, it's not too bad. I do like how it automatically moves the money to available for payment, so I'm never putting more on the CC than I can currently afford to pay off.

  4. rob62521 Says:
    April 5th, 2018 at 03:06 pm 1522940803
    1522940803

    Good suggestion, CB. Having cash on hand (and cash is king!) keeps you from hitting the CC when things get rough.

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