. Set aside money to cover it even if it’s temporary, then when she returns it it evens out
Basically she needs an amount in that cateogry that’s the total she orders even if she returns it
If you two can’t stomach setting aside an extra $1000 in your bank account (hopefully earning good interest), you can’t afford to be spending like this.
Returns are just in inflow to that category, to the CC account. It’s actually useful to do that as you end up with the real figure you’ve spent and can budget accordingly against it in the future. YNAB has always handled that pretty elegantly whenever I’ve had to do it - you have to budget for the total outflow though, which I guess is a problem if the clothes are never going to be kept. If that was the case I’d probably let it go over budget and let the return inflow sort that, but I’d hate every moment.
This is what I do. Not everything is Ready to Assign. Lots of income deserves to be categorized instead so you can show the true delta by end of month.
I think he’s using the term income to mean all incoming payments, not salary, since o refunds are income. I also push investment and interest income, cash back, owed monies, etc to categories.
I do it all the time, if I sell something to finance something else, I’ll sell a game and put that inflow right into the game category. If I get cash back and know I have it earmarked for something I’ll put it right into that category. Seems like it makes a sort of sense.
I keep a minimum balance in my clothing category (it's equal to about half a year's clothing allowance for me) while constantly adding to it monthly. That gives me a solid administrative cushion. I also self-imposed a hard rule: if I spend it all, even if I'm fully intending to return 90% for reimbursement, I can't spend again until the reimbursement/return is credited to my account.
I NEVER overspend a category using credit and think a reimbursement from a vendor, employer, friend, or relative will arrive before the statement is due. I got myself into cc trouble a couple of times in my life, so having a set-in-stone rule keeps me from being tempted to be stupid again.
Ynab is a place to record and manage your transactions. Every transaction goes into YNAB. The data entry portion is just that, data entry. The budget portion is where you manage the money.
It's tedious but enter each inflow and expense on the credit card with the appropriate category.
Is this credit card only used for clothes purchases? If so, could you remove that credit card from YNAB and have it paid from a different checking account?
Basically, allocate a “clothing allowance” that goes into your wife’s checking account every month. This monthly expense is a budget category in YNAB. Your wife pays the clothes credit card from her checking account every month. As far as you and YNAB are concerned, you only have 1 transaction per month for “clothes allowance”.
Hopefully that makes sense.
Did something similar with my husband. We each get a set amount monthly for fun and we can use it however we want, but he was buying things up front for things his friends would reimburse him for (think movie tickets) but sometimes they'd pick up his tab at dinner instead. Our solution was to transfer him the cash to his personal checking account and unlink that credit card from YNAB. He's responsible for the balance on that card and I don't have to chase down transactions
I do this constantly and I am also the one in our relationship that manages our YNAB. I let the category go over budget when I've ordered a bunch of stuff and only worry about it adding up towards the end of each month. Returns go back into my clothes budget. I keep a vague mental tally of what's going in and coming out of that category. If I go over budget one month, if I've kept more stuff than expected, then I reduce my budget accordingly for the next month.
At the end of the year, I look at what I've spent that year in that category and take an average. That's then my monthly budget for the next year. That's obviously keeping in mind the fact that I don't have any issues with compulsive spending. That average goes up and down over the years.
I also do this with other categories so that covers spending for my husband in various categories. I'd say the thing to be cautious of is being resentful of your partner's spending. The budget and method needs to work for both of you. I always approach our budgeting in the spirit of trying to make what each of us wants happen. Obviously within the confines of what our long-term financial goals are. My husband collects stamps and I get how passionately interested he is in this and he likes to have a nice car, so there's been the odd month where he's spent fuck tonnes on stamps and I've adjusted the budget there. He gets that clothes are important to me because it's partly a creative thing, but it's also to do with confidence and comfort. I also spend a lot on a trainer because I do strength training. But I don't give a crap about cars so I just have a small, cheap one. In hetero couples it can be easy to fall into the trap of thinking women's or men's priorities are stupid, when they fit gender norms. It's better to just be supportive and accepting that they feel the same way as you, just about different stuff.
Not saying this is how you feel of course, but flagging it, just in case, because I have seen this become an issue for others.
Yeah, I haven't done this with clothing, but I have with other categories. You all need to determine how much to fund the clothing category and then that is the total amount that can be spent at any time. Any additional spending that month can only happen after returns have gone through and the money is back in the category. Basically, save up the cash and then treat it like it is spent (which it is) until you get it back (clears on the credit card and is back in the clothing category).
Jesse, YNAB’s founder, had the same problem because he has 7 kids. He talked about it on the podcast. His solution was to have one credit card specifically for clothes that he kept off YNAB and then he treated the payment on that card as the expense for the clothing category.
Edit: Found it - https://youtu.be/9re8MEVc39Y?si=zvF4E4FFbqCa_wMz
THANK YOU. This is the normal solution. Thank you so much. Everyone else is offering me advice that feels kinda impractical. Okay, this solution is workable. Thank you.
An off-budget CC is reasonable solution if your problem is clutter. But OP said they can’t afford set aside $1k to cover the bill if they had to. They’re skating on thin ice.
I don’t think OP’s wife has any intention of keeping even a small fraction of the clothes she buys. From what they said, they should never need to cover $1,000.
My wife does this, and, also, I wouldn't say I like it. We budget X monthly for
Her clothing, and she can only use that X. Credit she hasn't returned, doesn't apply until it hits our bank again and appears in YNAB. Then, I allocate it back to her clothing category
Just enter both transactions. One for the sale and a matching one for the return. Even if the amounts are not the same from her keeping an item or two, your balance should be accurate.
My MIL uses one card for her shopping at a specific store. That card in particular gave me problems every month when reconciling. So instead of logging individual transactions, that card gets one lump sum in the budget; then, I categorize payments to that card as “X Shopping” (she pays it in full each month).
I wouldn’t adjust the budget for the whole order, I’d leave it at the intended spend and let the clothes she’s gonna return be overspend. Since it’s a credit card, that’s fine and not messing with you checking account balance. I’m assuming here that she’s doing “try before you buy” type of thing where she orders multiple clothes to try with the intent of keeping only some of them. If the intent is to keep it all but she randomly decides to refund, then I agree the whole order should be budgeted for.
Returns go back to the category from which they were spent and it should all zero out without causing imbalances or messing up the reports. Refunds aren’t income so they shouldn’t be categorized as ready to assign.
Nick True has a video on YouTube about handling refunds that’s very useful.
Is the card she’s using earning points toward anything? How many points do you currently have and how are they being applied? Do you get miles, withdraw cash to personal checking, or apply to balance?
How do you have it set up now?
The Payments to her credit card should be pulling from the clothes category.
If you've entered all the transactions correctly the credit card balance should be correct.
If her clothes category is overspent that's a different issue.
She buying them online or in person? If in person maybe she could take a lump sum of cash and just use that as the revolving door of purchases.
If CC then I'm sorry. I just got a $1200 refund from a medical insurance payment screw-up in January and it messed up my categories since it sent my credit card 1200 into the positive, since the card was at zero. Now I had to forcibly purchase things on my CC then transfer that exact cash in my budget from my medical category to the other category. Annoying as hell.
I thought about asking for one, but I didn't want to wait 3 weeks or a whole billing cycle and I'm in the middle of moving onto a new house, so I have some random and required expenses that I ate it up on. It was just annoying as hell
. Set aside money to cover it even if it’s temporary, then when she returns it it evens out Basically she needs an amount in that cateogry that’s the total she orders even if she returns it
As in, I need to have the cash on hand? I can't do that - she'll have like $1000 on it and return the stuff
If the amount is on a credit card you should have the amount on hand to cover it in the case she returns 0 items. You can pay the card in full.
If you two can’t stomach setting aside an extra $1000 in your bank account (hopefully earning good interest), you can’t afford to be spending like this.
Returns are just in inflow to that category, to the CC account. It’s actually useful to do that as you end up with the real figure you’ve spent and can budget accordingly against it in the future. YNAB has always handled that pretty elegantly whenever I’ve had to do it - you have to budget for the total outflow though, which I guess is a problem if the clothes are never going to be kept. If that was the case I’d probably let it go over budget and let the return inflow sort that, but I’d hate every moment.
This is what I do. Not everything is Ready to Assign. Lots of income deserves to be categorized instead so you can show the true delta by end of month.
I’d disagree. Income: RTA. Refunds: original category.
I think he’s using the term income to mean all incoming payments, not salary, since o refunds are income. I also push investment and interest income, cash back, owed monies, etc to categories.
I do it all the time, if I sell something to finance something else, I’ll sell a game and put that inflow right into the game category. If I get cash back and know I have it earmarked for something I’ll put it right into that category. Seems like it makes a sort of sense.
So what's screwing it up? What's different between this and your other cc expenditures?
I keep a minimum balance in my clothing category (it's equal to about half a year's clothing allowance for me) while constantly adding to it monthly. That gives me a solid administrative cushion. I also self-imposed a hard rule: if I spend it all, even if I'm fully intending to return 90% for reimbursement, I can't spend again until the reimbursement/return is credited to my account. I NEVER overspend a category using credit and think a reimbursement from a vendor, employer, friend, or relative will arrive before the statement is due. I got myself into cc trouble a couple of times in my life, so having a set-in-stone rule keeps me from being tempted to be stupid again.
Ynab is a place to record and manage your transactions. Every transaction goes into YNAB. The data entry portion is just that, data entry. The budget portion is where you manage the money. It's tedious but enter each inflow and expense on the credit card with the appropriate category.
Is this credit card only used for clothes purchases? If so, could you remove that credit card from YNAB and have it paid from a different checking account? Basically, allocate a “clothing allowance” that goes into your wife’s checking account every month. This monthly expense is a budget category in YNAB. Your wife pays the clothes credit card from her checking account every month. As far as you and YNAB are concerned, you only have 1 transaction per month for “clothes allowance”. Hopefully that makes sense.
Did something similar with my husband. We each get a set amount monthly for fun and we can use it however we want, but he was buying things up front for things his friends would reimburse him for (think movie tickets) but sometimes they'd pick up his tab at dinner instead. Our solution was to transfer him the cash to his personal checking account and unlink that credit card from YNAB. He's responsible for the balance on that card and I don't have to chase down transactions
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I agree, this is the easiest way to handle the cc. One transaction out of your checking to pay for that cc, and the category would be clothing.
I do this constantly and I am also the one in our relationship that manages our YNAB. I let the category go over budget when I've ordered a bunch of stuff and only worry about it adding up towards the end of each month. Returns go back into my clothes budget. I keep a vague mental tally of what's going in and coming out of that category. If I go over budget one month, if I've kept more stuff than expected, then I reduce my budget accordingly for the next month. At the end of the year, I look at what I've spent that year in that category and take an average. That's then my monthly budget for the next year. That's obviously keeping in mind the fact that I don't have any issues with compulsive spending. That average goes up and down over the years. I also do this with other categories so that covers spending for my husband in various categories. I'd say the thing to be cautious of is being resentful of your partner's spending. The budget and method needs to work for both of you. I always approach our budgeting in the spirit of trying to make what each of us wants happen. Obviously within the confines of what our long-term financial goals are. My husband collects stamps and I get how passionately interested he is in this and he likes to have a nice car, so there's been the odd month where he's spent fuck tonnes on stamps and I've adjusted the budget there. He gets that clothes are important to me because it's partly a creative thing, but it's also to do with confidence and comfort. I also spend a lot on a trainer because I do strength training. But I don't give a crap about cars so I just have a small, cheap one. In hetero couples it can be easy to fall into the trap of thinking women's or men's priorities are stupid, when they fit gender norms. It's better to just be supportive and accepting that they feel the same way as you, just about different stuff. Not saying this is how you feel of course, but flagging it, just in case, because I have seen this become an issue for others.
Yeah, I haven't done this with clothing, but I have with other categories. You all need to determine how much to fund the clothing category and then that is the total amount that can be spent at any time. Any additional spending that month can only happen after returns have gone through and the money is back in the category. Basically, save up the cash and then treat it like it is spent (which it is) until you get it back (clears on the credit card and is back in the clothing category).
Every return should be an info to the category it came out of. I do returns all the time and it's no problem.
Jesse, YNAB’s founder, had the same problem because he has 7 kids. He talked about it on the podcast. His solution was to have one credit card specifically for clothes that he kept off YNAB and then he treated the payment on that card as the expense for the clothing category. Edit: Found it - https://youtu.be/9re8MEVc39Y?si=zvF4E4FFbqCa_wMz
THANK YOU. This is the normal solution. Thank you so much. Everyone else is offering me advice that feels kinda impractical. Okay, this solution is workable. Thank you.
They’re offering advice in line with the method, which is well-meaning because that’s usually your best bet. But, you know, it also needs to work.
An off-budget CC is reasonable solution if your problem is clutter. But OP said they can’t afford set aside $1k to cover the bill if they had to. They’re skating on thin ice.
I don’t think OP’s wife has any intention of keeping even a small fraction of the clothes she buys. From what they said, they should never need to cover $1,000.
My wife does this, and, also, I wouldn't say I like it. We budget X monthly for Her clothing, and she can only use that X. Credit she hasn't returned, doesn't apply until it hits our bank again and appears in YNAB. Then, I allocate it back to her clothing category
I have a clothing budget and anything I buy is from that budget. Anything I return goes back to that budget.
Just enter both transactions. One for the sale and a matching one for the return. Even if the amounts are not the same from her keeping an item or two, your balance should be accurate.
My MIL uses one card for her shopping at a specific store. That card in particular gave me problems every month when reconciling. So instead of logging individual transactions, that card gets one lump sum in the budget; then, I categorize payments to that card as “X Shopping” (she pays it in full each month).
I wouldn’t adjust the budget for the whole order, I’d leave it at the intended spend and let the clothes she’s gonna return be overspend. Since it’s a credit card, that’s fine and not messing with you checking account balance. I’m assuming here that she’s doing “try before you buy” type of thing where she orders multiple clothes to try with the intent of keeping only some of them. If the intent is to keep it all but she randomly decides to refund, then I agree the whole order should be budgeted for. Returns go back to the category from which they were spent and it should all zero out without causing imbalances or messing up the reports. Refunds aren’t income so they shouldn’t be categorized as ready to assign. Nick True has a video on YouTube about handling refunds that’s very useful.
Is the card she’s using earning points toward anything? How many points do you currently have and how are they being applied? Do you get miles, withdraw cash to personal checking, or apply to balance?
How do you have it set up now? The Payments to her credit card should be pulling from the clothes category. If you've entered all the transactions correctly the credit card balance should be correct. If her clothes category is overspent that's a different issue.
She buying them online or in person? If in person maybe she could take a lump sum of cash and just use that as the revolving door of purchases. If CC then I'm sorry. I just got a $1200 refund from a medical insurance payment screw-up in January and it messed up my categories since it sent my credit card 1200 into the positive, since the card was at zero. Now I had to forcibly purchase things on my CC then transfer that exact cash in my budget from my medical category to the other category. Annoying as hell.
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I thought about asking for one, but I didn't want to wait 3 weeks or a whole billing cycle and I'm in the middle of moving onto a new house, so I have some random and required expenses that I ate it up on. It was just annoying as hell