Confessions of a Budget Nerd

[@Jubu_love]

I swear you guys are doing it on purpose now! LOL. First switched screen sides, then used Bert instead of Ben, now switched the order of your names! LOL. I never felt like such a nerd as I have noticing these switch ups. LOL Love you guys!

[@YNABofficial]

Besides the Bert and Ernie stunt, we're pretty unaware of those other deets! 🤣 -Ernie

[@meghanhurtado1147]

We purposely live on 1 income even though we are a 2 income family. My husband is in the military and finding work each time we move is a challenge and I often have months (or years) between jobs. This has been a tremendous help to our situation. And YNAB has helped keep us focused and avoid lifestyle creep!

[@himexkoneko]

Re: Confession #2 - I honestly thought I was crazy when I recently decided I hated all the dollars-and-some-cents savings goals I had, so I just rounded them all up until the available columns all had zeros after the decimals. It's so much more satisfying to look at. But in tandem with this change, I've created a Spare Change category that I'm not allowed to pull from and I throw any leftover cents from funding fixed bills (that usually have cents in the price) into it. I've only had it going for about a week or so and it's over $6 already!

[@YNABofficial]

Ohh, I like that Spare Change idea! ~Ernie

[@sonic60710]

Same !! I just hate seeing anything else than a 0 so I round up everything ! Though I use my leftovers to fund the next month or sometimes throw them in my travel category when next month's funded.

[@en3mes]

Keep up the great content! I love YNAB. I've been using it since July 2020, and I feel like I have such profound control over my money now. I'll never go back to being a non-budgeter!

[@k-for-days]

I’m always so happy to see a new episode of the show in my feed. Best of luck with the new arrival! 💕

[@cacamilca]

I think you're totally right with the skull emoji next to life insurance, Ben... because nobody is insuring our life, but our death... our finance advisor actually calls it the death insurance in German which I find refreshingly honest 😁

[@katiemoss6802]

I love how Budget Nerds are such detail people and celebrate this! Re Confession #7 I get paid every weekday (as a self employed health practitioner). I hear you guys and the wish that the start of the month would roll round more often, however actually needing to allocate those dollars every weekday (for the last 7 years) is not so fun...

[@terpinator24]

One of your funniest episodes for sure! I am so not a budget nerd, so I find half the stuff you do incredulous, but I also find inspiration and tips, too.

[@NettieFIRE]

Oh yeah! In the world of dual screens (or triple screens) you always have a spare place in which the budget can hang out; sometime on the ‘2nd screen’ but mostly on the primary screen 😏🙊💕

[@LoriJantzi]

Emoji's with one space before text.... I like seeing them all line up evenly. 💕🙂

[@ametisti88]

I like to use the colour coded emoji dots to indicate priority for assigning. The red dots get money first. Those are for payments that will be coming out of the account whether I like it or not. Then orange. That's for necessities like groceries (and fun money and dining out. Priorities, right?). Then yellow, which is for important, inevitable, but unexpected expenses like car maintenance. Then green is for fun quality of life stuff like vacations. I like to use the emojis this way because I like my categories to be lumped into type of expense. Such as all the housing expenses are together, all the car expenses, etc. That way I get the best of both worlds with ease of priority budgeting and reporting things like how much my house actually costs.

[@noneya154]

HOA 🐍 is my favorite.

[@dawnmcdonald9775]

My life insurance emoji is the casket ⚰️ LOL!😂

[@melissadavis7410]

I just started YNAB June 15th 2022. I binged every epidsode of Budget Nerds. My best girlfriends asked if I was in a cult. 🤣 Apparently I'm now obsessed with budgeting and paying my debt off in 2 years.

[@joannaraquel78]

Emojis in front for me! I definitely have the poop emoji, since I have a whole category group called "poop" happens lol. My favorite category emojis right now have to be: 💒💍👰🤵 Wedding

[@TrishaAnnwithanE]

Best wishes until your special day!!

[@joannaraquel78]

@@TrishaAnnwithanE thanks!

[@stbrown08]

I have an emoji for EVERYTHING item I budget. I think it's cute, my husband just shakes his head and puts in his info

[@chel2425]

I even put emojis in my Month Heading notes. Right now I have 5 shamrocks under March2022. April 2022 has bunnies and chicks. When I was a kid, I collected stickers so emojis are my digital stickers now. I use them everywhere.

[@beckybarrett7452]

I like to round my tips to the nearest dollar. I round my categorizes to the nearest $.50 I like to see those zeros on the end. I also reconcile with the app. I like to see the confetti! 🎊

[@beckyenyart8260]

Have “time to meditate” be a little note to pop up while the website is loading!

[@MsNitaki]

Loved this episode and enjoyed the jokes! I use a rainbow emoji for my fun money category because it’s just pretty, colourful and positive so it makes me happy, as do fun money. My husband named his fun money category “dumpster” because that’s where he dumps all his extra cash but of course I had to use the poop emoji for it because...it was just begging for it ;-)

[@elizabethgadsby9641]

Thought I had from the person who plugged YNAB in their work intro: I think that offering YNAB to employees as a benefit would be awesome! Much more helpful than the financial resources I have seen offered by employers.

[@YNABofficial]

May I offer your employers our finest Financial Wellness? 😀 ~Ernie www.youneedabudget.com/wellness/

[@elizabethgadsby9641]

@@YNABofficial 😲😲😲

[@AhsokaRey]

I can see Ernie and family wearing their YNAB shirts for the next family Christmas card. Great show guys! 😊

[@YNABofficial]

Maybe someday they'll indulge me, and we can pull this off! -Ernie

[@robbien.3964]

Totally stealing some of Ben’s emoji ideas-and congratulations on the new baby! When I was single, I would check my net worth multiple times a day. Like, I’d buy something from the vending machine, enter the transaction and then see how it affected my net worth. This was before I discovered YNAB (I think YNAB was still in its infancy, spreadsheet days then). Now being married and with more complicated finances, I’m relieved that DH has recently agreed that we only need to update our net worth quarterly so I’m not every month having to look up the value of every investment and figure out the current estimated value of our home and vehicles.

[@elissalarsen9145]

I'm Team round numbers all the way. Having the round number of the purchase or category is just pleasing to me.

[@TrishaAnnwithanE]

I place the emojis in front for most of my groups. However, the important groups get one in front and one after. My favorite emoji is the teddy bears in my 🧸 emotional wellness 🧸category group.

[@jenniferbrock5426]

13:48 I knew I couldn't be the only one who uses the skull and cross bones emoji for the life insurance category, Ben! I feel so seen!!

[@Actslikeacarisacar]

Happy Calculation - after getting a bonus decided to put $2500 on the car loan. Later in the month I started having to move money around. Well I had entered the $2500 manually and when it came through my bank they didn’t match so once I deleted the duplicate transaction I suddenly had $2500!

[@JacyOnTheFly]

My favorite emoji (always in front, and only 1 per category) is the martini glass for my Recreation & Hobbies category. That's so sad.

[@jameshuseby9931]

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

[@samwalker5748]

On categories, I do emoji's before the front and after end of text. Both emoji's are the same. I havent gotten to all the items :(

[@carrjar]

🌶 Giving - Always in front, one space.

[@catharinekarow6654]

The other perk of keeping it just open on my second screen at work, is the chance that someone may ask, “Hey, what is that ?” And give me an opening to gush/tell them all about YNAB!

[@beckyenyart8260]

My son invests and he’s 22! His parents sadly feels dumb when it comes to this realm of the world of money. Do you have a certain podcast or earlier post talking about investing even for late bloomers?

[@YNABofficial]

You're not alone Becky! Jesse and Matthew (from our support team) talked about this a few months ago. Here's a link to part 1 soundcloud.com/iynab/investing-101-with-matthew?

[@tfrizz2050]

I put my emojis after the text. 😄 I’m not sure about my favorite one. 🤷‍♀️

[@linkhs]

I'm a single-emoji per line user. My favorite is actually using the emoji as a mini category, specifically for video games I'm excited for and saving for. Pop a little 🎮 on there and set a goal for its release date.

[@Mustela8098]

Emojis in front. My favorite is my brokerage account that is not my ROTH IRA or 401k that I started that will be my passive income in far future. 💵🌳 Fidelity

[@beckyenyart8260]

Hi Ernie and Ben 💵💲💰

[@katrinahohbein1486]

i use a coffin for my life insurance category