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University Bill & YNAB

September 9th, 2015 at 09:55 pm

I paid the big fat University bill today in full. I had the money in savings. It was $7,198.55. I have not yet pulled any money from her ESA, since the market is down. It was looking good for a very little while this morning. Not that I planned to make a sell order today. We have time. Smile

You will be glad to hear that I did some entering of things into YNAB. I watched another tutorial which was helpful. I entered in all the credit cards we use regularly, with their current (PreYNAB balances). I entered only the $X I set aside at the beginning of this month to spend on the irregular purchases of the first half of the month. I budgeted that money into categories...starting with guesses really. Got to start somewhere though!

After that I went back and recorded actual purchases, most of which were on one credit card. There were a couple others on the Discover card and one in cash. I did have to adjust the budget. Originally I had no money for car repairs, but we did have a $129 expense for car maintenance. I had at least two other categories like this as well. The budget still shows $325 left, but I see it is assuming I want to pay all the card balances with this current income, which isn't exactly what I normally do. So, when I have a little more time I will look at that closer.

I'm feel better than I'm working on it. It does take time, but I do hope the investment is more clarity in how we spend some of our money.

Posted in Spending, Family, Debt | 6 Comments »

6 Responses to “University Bill & YNAB”

  1. alice4now Says:
    September 9th, 2015 at 11:55 pm 1441842904
    1441842904

    Maybe you can just list the categories for now, like a brainstorm session. And list what income you have coming in. You will see that big available to budget amount on the screen and just start plugging in numbers that you think will be spent or set aside in each category. Then you can ease into logging purchases. Task analysis of trying out YNAB! You may decide it's not for you, since you seem like you have a good system as it is.

    I know that YNAB has really helped me plan ahead for the irregular expenses that I just didn't keep on top of my head. So if I have an expense I wasn't expecting I have money to pay for it, I just might have to move money from other "rainy day" categories. Less pulling from savings.

  2. alice4now Says:
    September 9th, 2015 at 11:56 pm 1441842984
    1441842984

    Maybe you can just list the categories for now, like a brainstorm session. And list what income you have coming in. You will see that big available to budget amount on the screen and just start plugging in numbers that you think will be spent or set aside in each category. Then you can ease into logging purchases. Task analysis of trying out YNAB! You may decide it's not for you, since you seem like you have a good system as it is.

    I know that YNAB has really helped me plan ahead for the irregular expenses that I just didn't keep on top of my head. So if I have an expense I wasn't expecting I have money to pay for it, I just might have to move money from other "rainy day" categories. Less pulling from savings.

    I still don't feel very comfortable with the credit card system that YNAB uses, though...

  3. creditcardfree Says:
    September 10th, 2015 at 12:03 am 1441843403
    1441843403

    What I think it really will help with is overspending the amount I generally set aside! Or determine that we need more cash each pay period to work with. I do have a pretty good system, I expect if YNAB works it will just help tweak it all.

    What don't you like about the YNAB credit card system? That it uses it like a debit card?

  4. FrugalTexan75 Says:
    September 10th, 2015 at 12:31 am 1441845088
    1441845088

    That is a big fat bill! Smile
    Is she liking it so far?

  5. creditcardfree Says:
    September 10th, 2015 at 01:04 am 1441847085
    1441847085

    Yes, FT she is liking it. She was exhausted after the football game...so hot and so busy with band stuff. She was just texting me about someone she met that she has tons of things in common. I'm just glad she is meeting other people and making friends. She is also doing lots of things she needs to do on her own, which I knew she could do. Just nice to see she really is grown up and ready to be independent. Smile

  6. FrugalTexan75 Says:
    September 10th, 2015 at 02:38 am 1441852702
    1441852702

    That's good she's liking it so far and has made a friend already! I can bet she was pretty hot after the football game - it was SO hot here Saturday afternoon. Thankfully it rained later and really cooled things off. Smile

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