Making a Fresh Start in YNAB

[@lindsaysimplified]

We just made a fresh start for 2022 because we paid off all our debt in 2021, moved, and had a bunch of categories that weren’t relevant anymore. So excited for 2022!

[@YNABofficial]

Way to go, Lindsay! ~BenB

[@joanhall3718]

I’ve never wanted to use fresh start because I love tracking spending changes through time, ( it helps me to see how my spending has evolved ). This year I’m planning to move all my available money back into “to be assigned “ then reallocate it. It’s my attempt to have a fresh start without losing my past date for comparisons.

[@PatrikKron]

Same here. I have no intention to ever do a fresh start. Only time I'd do it is if I change budgeting tool.

[@YNABofficial]

That can be a really good option if you just want to re-asses some assumptions! ~BenB

[@patriciaburroughs]

Great idea. Thanks!

[@snana9665]

I was tempted to do a fresh start. But, I just moved my categories around. Deleted some, hid some, changed the name of some, and added some new ones. Reassessing targets, etc. I feel it’s pretty darn fresh, and I keep all my data

[@katzimmerman7436]

Thank you so much for reading my comment from early 2021! I was able to fully get a month ahead soon after this video and it has made all the difference! Looking forward to beefing up more of my true expenses this year!

[@owlexb1124]

This was great! I love to listen to / watch these while I'm budgeting so I have inspo + virtual budgeting "buddies." Happy New Year!

[@YNABofficial]

Aw so nice to have you here! ~BenB

[@christinesmith4217]

Yay, Amazement Square! We had a membership when we lived in town. Thanks, Ben and Ernie, for all you do!!

[@HarlandDWhite]

Really enjoyed you guys walking through this. Ben, I'm definitely inspired by the increased giving goals; I'm looking to do the same!!

[@YNABofficial]

Great to hear from you, Harland! I'm glad you enjoyed! ~BenB

[@NettieFIRE]

🤔 So … Ben walks into an appliance store. “Hi, my name is Ben and I need a new fridge”. “Welcome to our store Ben, you’ve come to the right place so, what’s your budget?”. “$20”. “Well Ben, before we look at ‘cooling’ options, I think we need to have discussion first about, what I like to call, ‘true expenses’. Let’s begin! Here at my feet is a white styrofoam box - that’s option 1 …..” 😂

[@dawnkoplitz1825]

Lol 😂

[@rebekahyoungers831]

Ernie, thank you for chiming in with your family’s grocery spending! We are a family of 5 with 3 boys aged 18, 16, and 12 and their appetites never cease to amaze me! We aim for $900/ month and that requires meal planning and lots of intentionality. Love YNAB because there’s never any judgment or push for one “right way” to spend money. Thanks for another awesome episode!

[@YNABofficial]

Yeah, I'm often impressed if my boy's snacks for the week last 48 hours! I would love to talk more about groceries in future episodes. ~Ernie

[@michaelhutchinson1789]

YNAB Win: Estimated our joint income, created all our categories and set goals for them all. Was a little surprised at how tight it ended up but still made it work with decent money going to savings as well. And then I realised in my joint income estimation I had only accounted for half of my partners monthly income. Good feeling 😁

[@skent]

I would LOVE to see an episode completely on Groceries! I have NO idea how you can possibly feed a family on so little. We are a household of 6 - 4 kids 18/17/15/12 - and I've struggled to get this monthly budget below $2K. And this was before the recent crazy price increases!!

[@tfrizz2050]

I was inspired by hearing about Ben’s compassion category so I decided to add a Random Acts of Kindness category to my budget. 🙂

[@YNABofficial]

Awesome! It's the most fun you'll have with money! 😄 ~BenB

[@brandankeel1855]

Just finished my first Fresh Start. Deleted a bunch of payees and categories plus tweaked my targets. Thanks for all that you do. Cheers!

[@kendrawright5283]

Even though I am not doing a fresh start this year, this was such a fun episode to watch. I legit chuckled out loud when Ben still does not want to fun his appliance category. 😂 I also thought the way Ben and his wife set their new budget goals with independent spreadsheets was a great idea!

[@conureron3792]

I did a fresh start last year, after a full year of using YNAB - it did clear up a lot of my rookie mistakes using the app, etc. this year, though, my budget is humming along in good fashion. Want at least 2 years of data, watching my net worth graph grow!

[@YNABofficial]

Niice! Keep it up! ~BenB

[@ladysun7965]

I just started a new 2022 budget after tinkering with different ones all of 2020. This is hopefully the one

[@SGast]

I am doing my fresh starts the same way as Ben I don't want any weird months. I do grocery shopping and I love being nerdy with it It really gives you a sense of accomplishment having a good meal plan and successful grocery shop. I could imagine that his wife feels the same and she likes being frugal with groceries.

[@bexgoodwin6605]

Okay, I did it. I did a fresh start on Dec 31. Once the money was one lump sum and I could do with as I pleased. I realized I had all bills covered for Jan 2022 🤯 and the year/month hasn’t even begun! I even have all gasoline covered for transportation and the first week of groceries! Goal with Money Saving Challenge January is to get two months ahead then start stock piling those sinking funds. Thanks for convincing me to try a fresh start YNAB Nerds!

[@laramylly5710]

Been a YNAB nerd for a few years. Fresh start was scary...and I tried it for Jan1 2022 and glad I did. Good to revisit categories and payees. Felt like a clean start and glad I did it.

[@itsGabrielaCristina]

I am itching to do a Fresh Start, but I’m going to hold off a bit. My budget is called Road to Homeownership. I’m hoping to reach that goal early next year and dona Fresh Start the month my first mortgage payment will be due. After that, I plan to make it a yearly thing!

[@apropo123]

I am embarrassed to say that I have tried to budget with Ynab for many years, but I have now decided to do it faithfully. I never make things simple but aim to be perfect. Now I need advice on how to begin that I will stay with it, except my mortgage and car and a couple of thousand credit card debt. I need to have a business budget and a personal one. Again I am so flustered I don't want to start. Can you kindly guide me?

[@elizabethman7313]

It’s truly going to change your life. Good introduction video = kzbin.info/www/bejne/eXe7en2ZrttghsU Recent changes to YNAB mean that it is now much easier to learn as you go. The gist is 1/ enter details of your checking (cheque/ current) account. Enter the money you actually have right now, whatever the date. The account tells you where your money is. 2/ open the budget AKA ‘ plan for my money’. It offers you a template which you can edit as needed, including emojis! Up the top will be a sum of money ‘to be assigned’ . Go ahead and assign the actual money you have to the categories that you need to pay for BEFORE THE NEXT CHUNK OF MONEY WILL ENTER YOUR LIFE. Then repeat when the next chunk of money comes. Every pound/dollar/yen gets a job. Even if the job is to sit in your account until its job becomes due. There will be nothing left to be assigned. Also check out kzbin.info/www/bejne/epTIdaaNjb6Wqa8 kzbin.info/www/bejne/m6m2YZqLYq6Ybqc The YNAB team are super helpful if you send in a query off the webpage, and their free online tutorials are also excellent.

[@janellerowe609]

Fun to see Ben having the benefits of a Fresh Start. I did one back in June 2021 when I hadn’t been using YNAB for a couple of months and my transactions were a mess. I’m hoping I won’t have to do one again, but if I have to that’s fine.

[@meskobe]

FYI, with most mortgages, you can take over your own escrow once you have 20% equity. So you could've been doing that long ago! As a nerdy YNABer, I swiped that task back from the bank asap! As you said, they're constantly changing the amount, which is really annoying! It also helps you be more attentive and aware of changes to homeowners insurance and property taxes. When you call up your insurance agent about increases, you'll hear them stutter to explain, because they're used to people just blindly allowing the bank to pay the bill, no questions asked. Just like car insurance, gotta shop it around every couple years!

[@Ann-Marielivingonabudget]

Love this! I needed the inspiration; I think we are going to try a fresh start for the new year.

[@mellowyello1478]

I restarted my budget - started in January 2020 - after a significant car repair bill drained my bank account. It was easier to just make a fresh start instead of changing all my budget categories out. I plan on making a 2nd Fresh Start on 1/1/21 and my eventual goal is to have 10k in the bank by the end of the year.

[@vincentapa1376]

I was able to take over the escrow after the first year. It is way easier. The $20 frig is very small.

[@kerriohs]

I'm laughing at the $20 appliances category!

[@blainetheplanner571]

Budget Nerds is AWESOME, and I sincerely appreciate you both. Ben always made my eye twitch every time he said "I don't have an appliances category." Kudos to Ben on putting $20 in one! Ben, do you have a home warranty that covers...I don't know...leaky refrigerators, appliances, HVAC systems, pipes, and other things break? LOL I plan to "Fresh Start" on 1 Jan `22, but I have a feeling I'm going to go right back to my current budget. I enjoy maintaining historical and net worth data, but it'll be a fun and nerdy try at the very least. Hey, I may end up adjusting my current budget file as a result. Thanks, guys!

[@YNABofficial]

Haha, I didn't even mean to! No idea how that $20 got in there. I don't have a home warranty and I've never thought I needed one because my home maintenance category seems to cover most things, but maybe I should look into it for some of the bigger stuff. As for your fresh start, maybe a soft fresh start is in order. You could move all your money back to Ready to Assign and then assign it again. Good way to reassess things without making a new file. ~BenB

[@blainetheplanner571]

@@YNABofficial I was kidding about the eye twitch! Everyone is unique and whatever makes you happy is most important! Cheers to a new year!

[@MaryHamerMusic]

Just made a fresh start after falling off for awhile and being intimidated by how many transactions I'd need to go through and reconcile. I'm SO happy I did! I found out that I DO, in fact, have enough money to pay my credit cards and my car payment this month, and I've assigned money towards my upcoming bills, and financed my first month of groceries, eating out, gas, entertainment, and personal fun-money! WOO!! Thank you!!

[@YNABofficial]

Whoa, sounds like that fresh start went well-congrats! ~Ernie

[@LeslieNicole]

I think I'm going to do a Fresh Start because I'm just a month into YNAB and getting to know it and somehow I got something wildly off and can't figure out how to fix it. My accounts and what's available are way different and scheduled transactions weren't accounting for the difference. I think I got into trouble understanding the RTA with 2 different debit accounts.

[@nicolebrown5987]

I love this program: I don't want to use it as an expense tracker! I will take this new "fresh start" plunge.

[@LJSinWA]

Can you make a fresh start but still be able to go back to your “former” file if the new one doesn’t work out?

[@YNABofficial]

You sure can! We'll always save a copy of your old budgets for you! ~Ernie

[@joannaraquel78]

I have done fresh starts at random times the last couple years so won't be doing one in January. But thanks for the idea to assign money first in the previous month, I had to be so careful last time to assign the correct amounts to some true expenses! And the reminder to clean up payees- haven't done that in a while so working on it right now :)

[@catherinenoble5788]

Very glad I did a fresh start middle of December, and simply adding current payees as I go. Will not put all savings towards debt repayment, but will discuss with hubby, and after emergency funds set up, then together, we'll decide on the rest. I love lumping retirement accounts all in one, yet, perhaps I'll set up new separate retirement budget to track monthly so I have the amounts available, and just update the monthly total into the newly refreshed budget. That's what I'm going to do later in last half of January, so I have a better sense of net worth without value of our house added in until we sell in a few years...

[@kardrynka]

I can't believe Ben finally did it 😁

[@lucyrobinson2218]

My husband and I used a spreadsheet to name our baby. We decided on 10 names then we each had a tab where we rated each name according to preference. It then auto calculated the most favoured name on tab 3. Can't argue with excel.

[@YNABofficial]

Whoa, that's incredible! ~Ernie

[@elizabethgadsby9641]

Thank you for another wonderful Budget Nerds video! I haven't been using YNAB for a full year yet, so probably too early for me to do a fresh start...BUT for when I do, how do you remove payees? There are some that I made mistakes on when entering and just rolled with it so there weren't two similar ones 😅

[@YNABofficial]

Great question! You can only do it on the web app right now. Click the name of your budget then Manage Payees. You can do all sorts of nerdy things there. ~BenB docs.youneedabudget.com/article/611-manage-payees

[@elizabethgadsby9641]

@@YNABofficial Thanks Ben! You are awesome!

[@JennJoi]

Replace the destroyed shoes AND get some closet racks to get the shoes up high or plastic shoe boxes to make the shoes inaccessible for chewing!

[@grace.1123]

best video to start off 2022 with!!!!!

[@agdahart6053]

Really just needed a simple discussion how to do a fresh start and things like can you delete old categories, what happen to them and much of what you were talking about like putting in transitions that happened two weeks ago was way over what I could understand. I have been using YNAB for 4 years and we dropped off for the last 6 months and are overwhelmed trying to get caught up. I only have a weekend to do this and can find nothing that simple shows how to do this.

[@YNABofficial]

Here's are simple, step-by-step instructions for making a Fresh Start. Hope that helps! ~Ernie

[@YNABofficial]

Ope, forgot the link. Here ya go support.ynab.com/en_us/making-a-fresh-start-a-guide-HkXYR_c0q#Make

[@terid6708]

As always, good to see you two again. Hearing all the great things that happen with a fresh start sound wonderful. I will probably switch to that one day, and today is not that day. I have gone from not knowing how to pay my monthly bills to just realizing I have a net worth of over $1.5M, in the course of 5 years using YNAB as the main change. Did a fresh start 12/31/2019 and intend to do one again on 12/31/2024. Until then I am comparing annual net worth increases and watching my net worth graph climb to levels I never imagined possible. I'm a convert from wondering why people would put themselves through budgeting to wondering how people accumulate anything without one. YNAB is the absolute best wealth builder.

[@VOIDVIDS]

God I wish I could have one of you just set up my budget for me 😭

[@beckyenyart8260]

You can do it! Don’t give up….it’s so worth it. I watched the ynab tutorials until I got the hang of it

[@tfrizz2050]

Not sure if you’ve seen this video, but if not, it may be the help you’re looking for. 🙂 kzbin.info/www/bejne/eXe7en2ZrttghsU

[@michelleadams5609]

Made a fresh start....this morning, it says, "103 new transactions to import" for one account! lol Did not know this might happen.

[@GG-zv9ku]

New here. See always taking about spreadsheets on every episode. Would be nice if you would share or give tutorials about working with spreadsheets or spreadsheets ideas. I find it hard to come up with ideas for spreadsheets

[@ThePennyDropsYNAB]

OH man, I've been thinking about it for 2022 and decided not to... Now I'm thinking about it again!

[@YNABofficial]

Dooo it! 😅 In all seriousness, no pressure. It took me long enough to pull the trigger! ~BenB

[@joanhall3718]

The more automated YNAB becomes the less I’m focused on it. I feel like it’s important to assess all my categories every month.

[@Tiredmum]

Home Ed ups the groceries too.

[@rebeccaangus7727]

Someone needs to do a random act of kindness and give you a new refrigerator!

[@rebeccaangus7727]

Thank you! I was considering doing a Fresh Start today but I think I'm going to wait until the end of the year so it'll be easier to print reports for taxes. Is that a logical conclusion?

[@YNABofficial]

That makes sense! Generally I always do my Fresh Starts at the beginning of the new year. ~Ernie

[@patriciaburroughs]

Can I backdate a fresh start or account to Jan 1, 2022 so that all of this year's transactions are in it?

[@nataliepace4189]

I have a question: My husband and I are trying to do a fresh start and we are getting stumped over how to carry over our credit cards. We set the balances on each card to match our bank accounts, but because the "fresh start" wiped our transaction history, we don't have that happy green number on each credit card showing the amount available to pay towards those cards from transactions already made in fully funded categories. How do we correctly match that up? Do we just assign money to each credit card to match the happy green number each card had in our old budget?

[@YNABofficial]

You've got it! Assign money to each payment category until it matches the Starting Balance amount in the CC account register in YNAB (this amount should also match the green number in the payment category of the old budget). ~Ernie

[@nataliepace4189]

@@YNABofficial Thank you! We eventually figured this out, and once we assigned the right amount to each CC, our "underfunded" number dropped back to the amount we thought our budget ought to be - we had a very stressful time for a minute there wondering why our budget was a couple thousand dollars over our income!

[@adnohrg]

So what happens to the current budget when you make a fresh start? If I change my mind, can I go back to the previous budget and delete the fresh start with no loss of data? This is why I've never done it.

[@YNABofficial]

Absolutely! A fresh start will make a new copy of the same exact budget (preserving your old one) and will allow you to redistribute your dollars however you want. If you want to go back to your old budget, click your email in the upper left hand corner, click "Open Budget," and find your old budget there (it will likely have the word "archived" added to it, since YNAB is assuming you're putting that budget back on the shelf). If you want to pick up that old budget again and carry on as normal, go for it! I like to edit the name in "Budget Settings" so I can take the "archived" out. Fresh starts are super safe! -Hannah 🌻

[@snana9665]

If I do a fresh start, and then regret it…. Can I delete the fresh budget and go back to my old one ?

[@YNABofficial]

You sure can! ~Ernie

[@snana9665]

@@YNABofficial thank you for responding 😀

[@ThatChick77]

How does fresh start affect the new loan feature?

[@YNABofficial]

Like with all the other accounts, it will wipe out transaction data....which I'm actually bummed about for when I do my fresh start tomorrow. ~Ernie

[@ThatChick77]

@@YNABofficial that is what I was afraid of. I did a fresh start back in July so I think I will just keep using this one.

[@lakeisharhyant2045]

Bessie hot a raise. Congrats! Lol

[@nigilvalikodath]

Does Ben and Ernie use YNAB toolkit? What are the pros and cons of using them??

[@wbtbrinker8225]

I started a Fresh Start Jan. 1, but I still get imports from bank connections in 2021 Budget. How to I stop his?

[@YNABofficial]

You'll want to unlink your bank in the old budget file. On web, right click the name of your account and you'll see an "Unlink" button. On mobile, go into the account, tap the three dots on the top right, then "Edit Account," then Unlink Account.

[@beckyenyart8260]

When I make a transfer with my bank from account to account, what ‘category’ should I list that as?

[@YNABofficial]

If both accounts are Budget accounts, you won't need a category. No money has entered or left your budget so it doesn't need a category! This doc will help! docs.youneedabudget.com/article/168-making-a-transfer

[@beckyenyart8260]

I didn’t think I needed a category but, in the app I have a notification about it and I am not sure how to address the notification??

[@terid6708]

@@beckyenyart8260 You want to do a transfer, not a new transaction. Hope that helps.

[@rebekahyoungers831]

@@beckyenyart8260 change your “pay to” vendor to a Transfer: acct and it should automatically change to “no category needed”

[@garynhelfrich]

When you do a fresh start in 2022 how do I account on goals that I’ve started in June of 2021 but carryover to June of 2022. The numbers don’t carryover

[@YNABofficial]

Hi Gary. The targets (goals) will carry over into the new budget. Then make sure you assign whatever you had available at the end of 2021, and that will allow you to pick up where you left off. ~Ernie

[@garynhelfrich]

@@YNABofficial thanks Ernie. That’s the solution I’ll run with

[@yazzy1979]

Wow congratulations on paying off a house

[@benc3726]

Huh... TIL a Fresh Start turns all your dollars into newborn babies (0 days old).

[@eprohoda]

friend,you made interestnig uploading~ have a good day,=))

[@marccoppejans1046]

Apart from a nutrition coach maybe a personal trainer would be a good idea for Ben

[@Idonotwantayoutubehandle]

11:20 in and you all have confused me greatly. Can't finish the video.