Needed to hear this today! Thank you.

Mannnnnn you are not alone! I do a very similar thing with gift cards. If I get a gift card, it’s off budget. I’ll spend it on groceries, and then I already bought the 20 or 50 bucks of groceries (if you go in store, a lot of places will let you split the transaction to two cards) so I just move the corresponding amount out of the groceries category :)

Oh my oh my oh my, thanks so much for sharing all this! I felt understood in a weird way 😅 I am not ready to share my YNAB silliness, but closer now.

I pay my rent via Zelle, and I need to do two consecutive transactions to not exceed the per transaction limit. This episode has just taught me I can combine them in YNAB for a cleaner report, and an accurate highest purchase item, and just delete the two imported ones. I also stop using the credit card just before the end of the month so I can pay the balance and have a zero balance on the cc. I have also put the grocery store divider between groceries and household items and paid in two transactions - not brave enough to do that in Costco, though, where it might be five different categories

Moving money with a zero split transaction to avoid the assigned column changing is genius!!

When ever use cash i round up next dollar save change in jar then at end of the month take my change in and it's like another deposit in my Budget

Today I added 0.01 cents to a category so that the orange bubble went green. I am winning at YNAB life goals! 🙂

For gift cards / places we have credit from where we spend a lot I have accounts (Amazon, Starbucks, Dunkin, Dutch Bros, Southwest) and then can handle the receiving / reloading and spending with standard transactions (two transactions needed for reloading from cc). For expense reports I have an account and a category, so book expenses to the reimbursement category -> offset it with a transaction in the Expense Report account once I submit for reimbursement -> transfer from the Expense Report account to my bank account when I receive the reimbursement. Other than that I'm fully in the split transaction camp and calculate out sales tax for the splits. I also took a suggestion from another episode and have a category group for home maintenance items with categories for each item that will need replacement at some point (AC, roof, windows, furnace, etc).

"YNAB isn't real man!!" I heard this in Tommy Chong's voice.

That's great! I don't see the option for the geo-payees option in settings though. Location is enabled already

Your budget isn't real! You made it up! Shhh Ernie, shhh. I never thought of making physically different transactions in the supermarket/when shopping to avoid having to use horrible-looking split transactions! I love it!

Well, accidental live streams are not on the list 😂

Gentlemen, welcome to the world of frugality :) me and my husband have been doing this for years :) I know exactly how much washing powder I need for single load, then look at the biggest packaging available, calculate how many loads it will last and then see how many weeks/months will it last me at my normal use for our family of three :) I do this with almost EVERYTHING and this is how we save around 2000-4000 euro each year. You become hyper aware of just how much you're using and start valuing things lot more. This is healthy, healthy for our finances, for our planet and for us as human race, it feeds your spirit with good values. I think this is good stuff, don't stop, this is good, it's what you enjoy and you enjoy it because it is good for you :)

TIL that the Tooth Fairy is able to perform advanced YNAB techniques like zero amount transactions, haha! One of the silly things YNAB makes me do is stare at my budget and be a little disappointed that I have to wait until my next paycheck before I can assign money again 😄

I don’t use the reports so now I’m thinking maybe I 😅 should have an Amazon category? I don’t know 🤔 😂

Because I want my data to be clean on a monthly basis, I will always make my cell phone bill date be on the last day of the month, even though sometimes it takes place on the first day of the next month. I like that monthly cost data haha.

That shortcut to the Amazon transactions page is gold! I hate digging through everything to find it!

Love you guys and I love YNAB!!

My husband and I own a retail store and we have a rogue elf, Effin, who plays hooky some years and hangs out in our store. (So yes, some adults without kids do elf on the shelf.) 😂

This just makes me happy to know I am not alone😂

My time limit for future dating transactions is based on how long it takes to clear my credit card, so usually no longer than 2 days

_Silly Things YNAB Makes Us Do_ Oh, yeah, totally. Lately, my kids have been terrified, as I have told them if they disturb me while I'm reconciling it would upset the finance gods, and I would have to sacrifice one of them in appeasement to the ancient god of finance _Wye-Nab_ in a ritual called 'Adjustment Transaction.' They started crying and pleading, but I informed them it's no use: "Wye-Nab will make me do it." Now the only game they dare playing while inside is 'mime,' and even that with skittish fear, all wide-eyed and subdued... so, yeah, things have been great-very quiet. I'd like to keep them wondering...

I saw the Amazon transaction link posted online (probably in reddit). While direct links are quicker, I HATE not knowing how to navigate from the homepage in case I lose the bookmark. Amazon home > Account & Lists (don't need to select from the menu, just click the header) > Your Payments (1st option on the 3rd row) > Transactions (in the header). Seems like a lot of steps, but it's pretty easy once you know where it is. OTOH, I usually just click the order link in the Amazon email. All online orders go into an email folder / label until I've entered them in YNAB.

This might just be my favourite episode ever! Listening to these nerdy confessions gives me the same sort of satisfaction that tinkering with the budget does.

Warning: “Do not try this at home” …. Except we already do! 😂

21:00 _"We're creating a fiction, in YNAB"_ "...an accounting fiction, if you will"

5:10 "But daddy, I wanna go to the bathroom!" "Hold it in, kiddo! The Budget says we're good for the month, and I will enforce it, so help me God!!!" ( oДo) *[small children crying]*

I absolutely assign amounts like $0.XX and $Y.XX to future categories so that I can see something like $2000 Underfunded and not $2345.67 to help my mental math

We're just monkeys driving cars 😆 I'm stealing this for my permanent idiom collection.

I don’t even use YNAB yet I’m happy to see this. 😂

Sometimes I’ll do two transactions in an account the same day but the order is wrong in YNAB so I change the date of the one that occurred later to the next day so it will jump ahead in the list of transactions. Then I feel better!😊

YNAB win: The YNAB method has become so ingrained in our habits that we recently experienced a month where so many true expenses came due that we filtered over 2x the normal amount of cash through our checking account and didn't even notice the large abnormality in "spending" until we later reviewed the reports! We were shocked that we hadn't even noticed it happening! Just entered the transactions knowing that the money was in the category, ready to go.

Oh my goodness Ben, we are all just monkeys driving cars and making stuff up!!! Come for the fun stories, stay for the existential crisis!!! 😂

I love that you did this video. It’s great to have the stories from inside and knowing no one is a perfect YNABer.

I didn’t know about the way to figure out the Amazon order! Thanks!

YNAB makes money less fungible... that kind of blew my mind but that's exactly what it's meant for.

Maybe Budget Nerds Live in San Diego? Huh huh? How about it? And then maybe record it and post it to the YT channel to those of us who are a too far to make it, pretty please? 😊 Would be awesome!

Ben, Ernie, Nice to be able to say this to you for a change: You are not alone. 😆

Happy Thanksgiving fellas! I am thankful for YNAB!

Some of these had me laughing out loud. I'm all for any of these "quirky" things you do as long as they bring you joy!

🎉

“Hail to the freaking chief, baby!” Thanks for the video! I’ve been going through personal financial uncertainty recently, and it’s helpful!

I haven't finished the training videos yet, but I wonder why you are excluding payments due on the 1st of next month, when your payday isnt until the 3rd. Shouldn't you be setting aside that money now?

Whoa, coincidentally I just started getting into kombucha 😶‍🌫️

Here's a written summary of the detailed method...in case this is useful to someone else :) 1. When you make a purchase split with someone else, split the category between the actual category (money spent on you) and the category you use for splits with the other person 2. When you settle up, create a Settle Up transaction: - The total is an inflow or outflow of the 'Settle Up' amount - Make it a split transaction - Outflows: Enter each transaction where the other person spent money on YOU as a split portion of that within that transaction, with the appropriate category - Inflow: Enter a single transaction 'what the other person owes me' - which is a total of all the transactions where you've spent on the other person

This was one of your best videos. Thanks😊

Just noticed the sign on the wall - love it :-)

Cool video, but why is better quality not available in YT? I can barely see the text

I love love love this. Life just got so much easier. 2 things: 1. How will suggested $$ amounts be handled once it's been a few years since the specific template was created and inflation has changed them? 2. As a longer-term project, you could consider integrating with AI to have AI generate whatever template the user requests. Then you don't have to plan for every life contingency for us

Great information! Love the new format!