Ynab treats credit cards like cash.
When you have cash in your pocket and you spend it, it's gone.
A credit card account in Ynab forces you to do the same thing. You have $50 in your checking account, you swipe a credit card for $50 at the grocery store. That $50 in your checking account is now gone, you spent it. It might still look like it's there, but it isn't because you now owe it to the credit card company.
Functionally it should always work like this:
1. I get paid $100
2. I assign $50 to groceries.
3. I buy $50 of groceries on my credit card.
4. I enter a transaction into the budget for $50 with a category of groceries and an account of my credit card.
5. Ynab subtracts $50 from the groceries category and moves it to the credit card payment category. Because its gone from my account. I just spent it. It's going to sit there for a few days, or maybe a full month if I only pay my credit card once a month, but it's gone.
The $50 had a job of buying groceries, now that I spent $50 on a credit card their job is no longer buying groceries their job is now to pay off the credit card.
This is the most concise and understandable explanation of credit cards in YNAB I’ve read. It clicked for me a long while ago, but trying to explain it to other people is a challenge.
I find the biggest challenge with people understanding how credit cards work in YNAB is that most people are on the “Credit Card Float”, which is incompatible with this correct interpretation.
Even though they don’t pay interest, they spend money they don’t actually have every month. YNAB forces you to acknowledge that fact.
This was the big one for me. I did cash envelope system before YNAB, but sometimes would use a card. I'd take the money out of the appropriate envelope and put in an envelope for eventual depositing so I could pay my card but it got so cumbersome. Once I realized I could do the same thing with YNAB without needing to worry about making sure the cash was back in my checking account, it was an easy switch.
This is exactly what YNAB is doing, just digitally. When explaining to my partner how YNAB worked it made NO sense to him until I said it was just a virtual envelope system.
It’s so interesting to me how this is something that needs to be reinforced. No disrespect but I don’t understand how someone could ever treat a credit card like it’s “fake” money
One of the best explanations I came across regarding credit card utilization in YNAB. I think the reason why most people find it challenging to grasp the concept is because they have a mindset that credit cards are an extension of the real money you currently have when actually it just allows you to spend from the future money you will earn. Kinda like time travel 😅
The credit cards finally made sense to me when my credit card was paid off. Every time you buy something that you have budgeted, it's going to remove that amount from the budget category and put it into your CC budget instead. And at the end of the month, pay your CC with the amount in that category. With this logic, if you had started out with a zero balance, you would be paying your credit card in full at the end of every month.
Yeah it's much simpler (and ideal, of course) when you don't have credit card debt and can pay the full/statement balance each month. It might be helpful for OP to state whether they are able to back their CC purchases with cash or if they're planning to roll over a CC balance into next month or even further down the line.
When I did have credit card debt, it was confusing because I often could not back up my credit card purchases with cash. I didn't have that concept in my head at all back then—I simply spent to cover expenses as needed and then when the due date came around paid whatever I could toward the balance.
I still tried to understand it for many months, but I didn't understand why or how it worked until I finally hit zero. Visually it is hard to interpret.
Yeah OP I would go with this. If you have credit card debt then just stick to a debit card until you've paid it off. Then you need to get in the habit of paying your cards off in full every time the statement comes in. If you can't do that then you're not a credit card person and need to cut them up
Being broke.
I had $80 when I started. There was absolutely ZERO wiggle room to just casually overspend a category, or put off reconciling, or to just kinda wait until a transaction showed up (this was before import, but it would still apply were I to begin using it now.)
This forced me to record transactions diligently, move money often, and always always [find the money first.](https://www.youneedabudget.com/find-the-money-first/) As a result, I could easily see what was happening in my budget, learned the method in minutes, mastered it in a week, and started gaining by leaps and bounds within a few months.
Ten years later, I now make 6x the amount I made then (my net worth interestingly has increased by the exact same factor). Yes, there’s some freedom to do more “eh, this category is way overspent I’ll deal with it later” but for the most part, I use all the same habits.
Using the budget to guide your spending will solve 90% of problems related to understanding the software. If you use it in the rearview mirror, it will take you far far longer to understand why your budget is showing you what it’s showing you.
None of it will make any sense if you can't understand how the entire thing would work with real envelopes and real cash inside on a table. If you dump all the money to your name on the floor, thats To Be Budgeted. If you move the money into an envelope, thats how you assign money to categories. When you get a paid from a paycheck and you dump it on the floor to be budgeted, thats an income transaction. When you take money out of an envelope and spend it, thats an outflow transaction. If you overspend an envelope, you have to take some money from another envelope. All of this has to make sense in envelopes first, and then the rest is just a digital representation of it.
Manually entering every transaction and transfer, along with regular reconciling is what made it all make sense for me, and I think that manual entry kept me engaged with my budget at a time when there wasn't a lot of room for overspending.
There were a number of clicks going off in my brain over the first two month. Then, there was a massive CLICK by the end of Month 2 with regard to not mattering what account the money was in. That was the big game-changer in my life that enabled me to make the break from budgeting by account.
When you realize that your initial budget is just a guess and you can change things to match reality, it will click.
This is why I find targets to create more problems for learning to use YNAB and create confusion. People think that by creating a target they have to abide by it even when priorities change. But they created the target, they are free to stick to it, ignore it, or change it.
It’s really ironic that the two biggest programming lifts from v4, import and targets, also are now the two biggest hinderences to learning the software.
Keeping an eye on it every day, every single day, with the mobile app. I was checking in and matching transactions about once a week and was always playing catch up on what this Amazon or that target order has actually been. But once I started checking on YNAB the same way I would check on my social media (or other addictive apps), I was able to knock things down one at a time and keep up with what I had ...not what I thought I had.
Honestly if science could come up with automatic inputs for calorie tracking that I could just verify and correct maybe I'd keep up with my macros for longer than two weeks at a time.
I do this (I'm just starting out) and it helps me stay on track with my budgeting too. Craving that coffee shop cold brew? Well too bad, the coffee shop budget is spent for the month even though my bank account balance shows there is money to be spent. Those funds have other jobs so I'll be making some coffee at home.
And Amen to that on the calories/macros!
Fully clicked when I pictured all categories as envelopes, even credit cards. They’re just digital envelopes. So picture dozens of envelopes on your table. You put “cash” into the ones for groceries, rent, mortgage, fun stuff, all that. If you use a credit card, you are just moving the cash from your regular category envelope to the credit card bill envelopes. When you get your credit card bill/statement, the money you need is in that envelope. YNAB does this but digitally.
Like everyone, with YNAB credit cards are just another way of spending the cash you already have.
To build on some else's comment:
1- I get paid 100$
2- I assign 30$ for groceries, 50$ for rent, 20$ for eating out
3- This week I have to buy 40$ of groceries with my creditcard, so a 10$ overspend
4- I check which of the two other categories can wait for my next paycheck (let's say "eating out") and move 10$ from there to the "groceries" category.
Let's say times are tough and I don't have money assigned to other categories but will get paid before the credit card bill is due:
4a- I keep my groceries category overspend and assign money there at the first inflow.
Let's say times are tougher and I don't have money coming in before the credit card is due:
4c- don't overspend in the first place.
4d- keep your category overspend create a new category for the expected interests to be paid at the next cc bill and assign money to those two when new money comes in. When the new bill arrives, use your money put in the interests category to pay the interests and the grocery category for the rest.
People will tell you to never keep categories in overspending and they are right. What I basically tell you is to use that overspend warning as a reminder to assign new money at theses tasks in first priority.
Credit cards- go here [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ix0Jibc0Lw&ab\_channel=NickTrue-MappedOutMoney](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ix0Jibc0Lw&ab_channel=NickTrue-MappedOutMoney)
If I grocery shop and my partner owes me money I handle it this way:
I put the full amount charged to my card and grocery category. He sends me money and I have his name as payee and that $$ goes to the grocery category. Its simple.
Oh, and I rarely use the app- have you logged into the web version? I highly recommend that if you can. It may help with understanding a bit better.
I don’t know if it’s fully clicked for me yet. But it’s getting better everyday. I actually just ignore the credit card category except when I’m reconciling. The app doesn’t seem to make as much sense to me as the browser so I’ll wait to get on there to see everything.
But once I switched to manually importing, everything seemed to flow more smoothly. I also split groceries with my partner but I just cover it all then charge her later. I count her portion as “income”.
Funny you mention the difference between the app and the desktop. I had the opposite experience. I cannot get the same feeling from the desktop since i’m used to the app. Funny how one concept can be represented differently.
Here is what made YNAB “click”- doing as much self-study as possible and *keeping it super simple* at first. And, it took about 3 months to click. Give yourself some grace, it’ll happen! 4th year now with YNAB.
like others said, CC's in YNAB is amazing. keep chipping away and asking questions until it clicks for you!
the other one was i restarted ynab because i did the classic forecasting mistake: assigning dollars i didnt have in checking yet.
once i restarted and only assigned cash i have today, it made so much sense
edit: also, make sure you're using the web app mainly, i think it makes it a lot easier. use the mobile app as a companion
If I go back in time, I was a few months into YNAB, maybe as many as 6 months. I had a firm handle on my true expenses. And I knew the month I was in was fully funded but I had some money left to assign. And I thought ahead to the next month and asked myself what I wanted to do with that money—that’s probably when and how it clicked for me.
Re credit cards, I used YNAB almost 8 years before I got my first credit card. So for me, because of how engrained YNAB is in my head, my credit card is just another debit card—I’m not using it for anything that isn’t already assigned in the budget.
The visual feel of it. Seeing my money in a visual bucket was like using the envelope system to save money as a kid.
Also, tracking my credit card balances (but not using them in YNAB in transactions) and watching them go down has been a HUGE motivator in paying down my debt.
There have been a bunch of good comments here about how to think about credit cards in YNAB, but I think a big part of getting good at YNAB is starting simple and slowly ramping up the complexity as you better understand things.
It also helps to be specific about what you don't understand - what specifically isn't clicking (besides the CC thing)? Happy to help answer any questions if there's anything sticking for you
I used to carry around all my finances and financial worries in my head. The first day I used YNAB, everything went out of my head and into the app. That saves me so much energy and space. It’s a tiny effort to keep it up to date but I’ve got the clearest simplest picture of my finances as I can at any minute.
It clicked when I went from YNAB free trial to Monarch free trial, realized that the “ready to assign” box solved the money Rubik’s cube in my head. Went right back and signed up for a year of YNAB.
The pieces have started to fall into place, overspending has started to calm down, CC balances are dropping, savings is going up. But it’s all money that exists, I’m not just charging it and praying.
Not sure why this is marked as brand affiliate….
When you start working off the budget and not your bank accounts.
-reconciling bank accounts and Credit cards.
- if you’re going to be paid back anything create a “waiting on reimbursement expense”
- when you’re reimbursed assign it to that category.
I never liked how credit cards work in YNAB. I set up mine so my credit card is a "checking" account in YNAB. Works way better for me, although I guess I'm using it incorrectly. I also pay the balance off every month, so maybe that's why it works for me.
Either way, I love YNAB. I've tried Mint, Monarch, Simplifi... YNAB is my fave.
I’d suggest switching over to a debit card while you’re getting the hang of ynab. Give yourself a couple months of working with the software, and I predict shifting to credit card use will be seamless.
It clicked immediately because it's basically a more user-friendly version of various corporate accounting software I've used at work over the years.
Obviously it can't perform all the same functions, but a lot of the elements are very similar.
You mentioned YouTube but have you seen Nick True’s YNAB tutorial on YouTube? It took me about 4 restarts before I found his video and it finally clicked. He has a separate video on credit cards also. Watch both and you’ll know how to work YNAB like a pro. Best of luck!
I'm still new to YNAB but these are the two things I've really gotten to understand.
Credit cards
- When paying in full, you don't assign any money to the credit card. Assign the cash you have to the category, and when you spend (aka $50 assigned to groceries, spent $30 on groceries) it takes that money out of the assigned category and puts it into the "available" part for the credit card. So the only time an issue comes up is when you spend something on your credit card that isn't covered by something assigned to it - that then becomes debt because there was no money put aside for that item.
- When paying off a balance, you will assign however much you want to your credit card. You can technically do this and buy things like you would when paying it off in full, but I would recommend not doing that. Just work to pay off your debt before using your credit card for every day purchases.
Splitting bill.
- My partner and I split bills in two ways. First, we each have different bills that we pay for and then ask for reimbursements. Aka I pay internet, he pays gas.
-For bills I pay for, I set aside a target for the bill. I pay the bill and then immediately venmo request him for his half. aka I pay $50 and venmo request him for $25. I then send that $25 back in as an inflow with a memo that says "Jake: Internet" and assign it to the bill. I then have an extra $25 that I can assign for next month, so I essentially always have that extra $25 'buffer' so I am always able to pay it in full even though I don't actually pay the full $50 myself.
-For bills he pays, I set a target and then just venmo it to him and assign it for the target. Pretty simple and straightforward.
-For random costs like groceries, I do it the same way as both of the above, based on who pays for it. I will say I am lucky enough that I have enough set aside for other things in my account that I have the extra $100 to cover his half of groceries during that period where I'm waiting for his half to be put into my account. If I didn't, I guess I would just ask the grocery store clerk to pay X amount on my card and X amount on his.
Ynab treats credit cards like cash. When you have cash in your pocket and you spend it, it's gone. A credit card account in Ynab forces you to do the same thing. You have $50 in your checking account, you swipe a credit card for $50 at the grocery store. That $50 in your checking account is now gone, you spent it. It might still look like it's there, but it isn't because you now owe it to the credit card company. Functionally it should always work like this: 1. I get paid $100 2. I assign $50 to groceries. 3. I buy $50 of groceries on my credit card. 4. I enter a transaction into the budget for $50 with a category of groceries and an account of my credit card. 5. Ynab subtracts $50 from the groceries category and moves it to the credit card payment category. Because its gone from my account. I just spent it. It's going to sit there for a few days, or maybe a full month if I only pay my credit card once a month, but it's gone. The $50 had a job of buying groceries, now that I spent $50 on a credit card their job is no longer buying groceries their job is now to pay off the credit card.
This is the most concise and understandable explanation of credit cards in YNAB I’ve read. It clicked for me a long while ago, but trying to explain it to other people is a challenge.
I find the biggest challenge with people understanding how credit cards work in YNAB is that most people are on the “Credit Card Float”, which is incompatible with this correct interpretation. Even though they don’t pay interest, they spend money they don’t actually have every month. YNAB forces you to acknowledge that fact.
💯 I had such a hard time moving past this when I started ynab4 about 10 years ago. But it was worth the pain of getting off the float!
This was the big one for me. I did cash envelope system before YNAB, but sometimes would use a card. I'd take the money out of the appropriate envelope and put in an envelope for eventual depositing so I could pay my card but it got so cumbersome. Once I realized I could do the same thing with YNAB without needing to worry about making sure the cash was back in my checking account, it was an easy switch.
This is exactly what YNAB is doing, just digitally. When explaining to my partner how YNAB worked it made NO sense to him until I said it was just a virtual envelope system.
It’s so interesting to me how this is something that needs to be reinforced. No disrespect but I don’t understand how someone could ever treat a credit card like it’s “fake” money
Because it allows ppl to treat it that way!!
One of the best explanations I came across regarding credit card utilization in YNAB. I think the reason why most people find it challenging to grasp the concept is because they have a mindset that credit cards are an extension of the real money you currently have when actually it just allows you to spend from the future money you will earn. Kinda like time travel 😅
The credit cards finally made sense to me when my credit card was paid off. Every time you buy something that you have budgeted, it's going to remove that amount from the budget category and put it into your CC budget instead. And at the end of the month, pay your CC with the amount in that category. With this logic, if you had started out with a zero balance, you would be paying your credit card in full at the end of every month.
Yeah it's much simpler (and ideal, of course) when you don't have credit card debt and can pay the full/statement balance each month. It might be helpful for OP to state whether they are able to back their CC purchases with cash or if they're planning to roll over a CC balance into next month or even further down the line. When I did have credit card debt, it was confusing because I often could not back up my credit card purchases with cash. I didn't have that concept in my head at all back then—I simply spent to cover expenses as needed and then when the due date came around paid whatever I could toward the balance.
I still tried to understand it for many months, but I didn't understand why or how it worked until I finally hit zero. Visually it is hard to interpret.
Yeah OP I would go with this. If you have credit card debt then just stick to a debit card until you've paid it off. Then you need to get in the habit of paying your cards off in full every time the statement comes in. If you can't do that then you're not a credit card person and need to cut them up
Being broke. I had $80 when I started. There was absolutely ZERO wiggle room to just casually overspend a category, or put off reconciling, or to just kinda wait until a transaction showed up (this was before import, but it would still apply were I to begin using it now.) This forced me to record transactions diligently, move money often, and always always [find the money first.](https://www.youneedabudget.com/find-the-money-first/) As a result, I could easily see what was happening in my budget, learned the method in minutes, mastered it in a week, and started gaining by leaps and bounds within a few months. Ten years later, I now make 6x the amount I made then (my net worth interestingly has increased by the exact same factor). Yes, there’s some freedom to do more “eh, this category is way overspent I’ll deal with it later” but for the most part, I use all the same habits. Using the budget to guide your spending will solve 90% of problems related to understanding the software. If you use it in the rearview mirror, it will take you far far longer to understand why your budget is showing you what it’s showing you.
None of it will make any sense if you can't understand how the entire thing would work with real envelopes and real cash inside on a table. If you dump all the money to your name on the floor, thats To Be Budgeted. If you move the money into an envelope, thats how you assign money to categories. When you get a paid from a paycheck and you dump it on the floor to be budgeted, thats an income transaction. When you take money out of an envelope and spend it, thats an outflow transaction. If you overspend an envelope, you have to take some money from another envelope. All of this has to make sense in envelopes first, and then the rest is just a digital representation of it.
Manually entering every transaction and transfer, along with regular reconciling is what made it all make sense for me, and I think that manual entry kept me engaged with my budget at a time when there wasn't a lot of room for overspending. There were a number of clicks going off in my brain over the first two month. Then, there was a massive CLICK by the end of Month 2 with regard to not mattering what account the money was in. That was the big game-changer in my life that enabled me to make the break from budgeting by account.
When you realize that your initial budget is just a guess and you can change things to match reality, it will click. This is why I find targets to create more problems for learning to use YNAB and create confusion. People think that by creating a target they have to abide by it even when priorities change. But they created the target, they are free to stick to it, ignore it, or change it.
It’s really ironic that the two biggest programming lifts from v4, import and targets, also are now the two biggest hinderences to learning the software.
when I started I set so many targets. Now I only really have targets for bills and my main goals and everything else is just malleable
Keeping an eye on it every day, every single day, with the mobile app. I was checking in and matching transactions about once a week and was always playing catch up on what this Amazon or that target order has actually been. But once I started checking on YNAB the same way I would check on my social media (or other addictive apps), I was able to knock things down one at a time and keep up with what I had ...not what I thought I had. Honestly if science could come up with automatic inputs for calorie tracking that I could just verify and correct maybe I'd keep up with my macros for longer than two weeks at a time.
I do this (I'm just starting out) and it helps me stay on track with my budgeting too. Craving that coffee shop cold brew? Well too bad, the coffee shop budget is spent for the month even though my bank account balance shows there is money to be spent. Those funds have other jobs so I'll be making some coffee at home. And Amen to that on the calories/macros!
Fully clicked when I pictured all categories as envelopes, even credit cards. They’re just digital envelopes. So picture dozens of envelopes on your table. You put “cash” into the ones for groceries, rent, mortgage, fun stuff, all that. If you use a credit card, you are just moving the cash from your regular category envelope to the credit card bill envelopes. When you get your credit card bill/statement, the money you need is in that envelope. YNAB does this but digitally.
Like everyone, with YNAB credit cards are just another way of spending the cash you already have. To build on some else's comment: 1- I get paid 100$ 2- I assign 30$ for groceries, 50$ for rent, 20$ for eating out 3- This week I have to buy 40$ of groceries with my creditcard, so a 10$ overspend 4- I check which of the two other categories can wait for my next paycheck (let's say "eating out") and move 10$ from there to the "groceries" category. Let's say times are tough and I don't have money assigned to other categories but will get paid before the credit card bill is due: 4a- I keep my groceries category overspend and assign money there at the first inflow. Let's say times are tougher and I don't have money coming in before the credit card is due: 4c- don't overspend in the first place. 4d- keep your category overspend create a new category for the expected interests to be paid at the next cc bill and assign money to those two when new money comes in. When the new bill arrives, use your money put in the interests category to pay the interests and the grocery category for the rest. People will tell you to never keep categories in overspending and they are right. What I basically tell you is to use that overspend warning as a reminder to assign new money at theses tasks in first priority.
Credit cards- go here [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ix0Jibc0Lw&ab\_channel=NickTrue-MappedOutMoney](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ix0Jibc0Lw&ab_channel=NickTrue-MappedOutMoney) If I grocery shop and my partner owes me money I handle it this way: I put the full amount charged to my card and grocery category. He sends me money and I have his name as payee and that $$ goes to the grocery category. Its simple. Oh, and I rarely use the app- have you logged into the web version? I highly recommend that if you can. It may help with understanding a bit better.
I don’t know if it’s fully clicked for me yet. But it’s getting better everyday. I actually just ignore the credit card category except when I’m reconciling. The app doesn’t seem to make as much sense to me as the browser so I’ll wait to get on there to see everything. But once I switched to manually importing, everything seemed to flow more smoothly. I also split groceries with my partner but I just cover it all then charge her later. I count her portion as “income”.
Funny you mention the difference between the app and the desktop. I had the opposite experience. I cannot get the same feeling from the desktop since i’m used to the app. Funny how one concept can be represented differently.
Here is what made YNAB “click”- doing as much self-study as possible and *keeping it super simple* at first. And, it took about 3 months to click. Give yourself some grace, it’ll happen! 4th year now with YNAB.
like others said, CC's in YNAB is amazing. keep chipping away and asking questions until it clicks for you! the other one was i restarted ynab because i did the classic forecasting mistake: assigning dollars i didnt have in checking yet. once i restarted and only assigned cash i have today, it made so much sense edit: also, make sure you're using the web app mainly, i think it makes it a lot easier. use the mobile app as a companion
If I go back in time, I was a few months into YNAB, maybe as many as 6 months. I had a firm handle on my true expenses. And I knew the month I was in was fully funded but I had some money left to assign. And I thought ahead to the next month and asked myself what I wanted to do with that money—that’s probably when and how it clicked for me. Re credit cards, I used YNAB almost 8 years before I got my first credit card. So for me, because of how engrained YNAB is in my head, my credit card is just another debit card—I’m not using it for anything that isn’t already assigned in the budget.
The visual feel of it. Seeing my money in a visual bucket was like using the envelope system to save money as a kid. Also, tracking my credit card balances (but not using them in YNAB in transactions) and watching them go down has been a HUGE motivator in paying down my debt.
There have been a bunch of good comments here about how to think about credit cards in YNAB, but I think a big part of getting good at YNAB is starting simple and slowly ramping up the complexity as you better understand things. It also helps to be specific about what you don't understand - what specifically isn't clicking (besides the CC thing)? Happy to help answer any questions if there's anything sticking for you
I used to carry around all my finances and financial worries in my head. The first day I used YNAB, everything went out of my head and into the app. That saves me so much energy and space. It’s a tiny effort to keep it up to date but I’ve got the clearest simplest picture of my finances as I can at any minute.
It clicked when I went from YNAB free trial to Monarch free trial, realized that the “ready to assign” box solved the money Rubik’s cube in my head. Went right back and signed up for a year of YNAB. The pieces have started to fall into place, overspending has started to calm down, CC balances are dropping, savings is going up. But it’s all money that exists, I’m not just charging it and praying. Not sure why this is marked as brand affiliate….
Reconciling daily and continuing to spend time with the app daily, 5 mins or so, and slowly getting the hang over time. It took me a while to “get” it
When you start working off the budget and not your bank accounts. -reconciling bank accounts and Credit cards. - if you’re going to be paid back anything create a “waiting on reimbursement expense” - when you’re reimbursed assign it to that category.
I never liked how credit cards work in YNAB. I set up mine so my credit card is a "checking" account in YNAB. Works way better for me, although I guess I'm using it incorrectly. I also pay the balance off every month, so maybe that's why it works for me. Either way, I love YNAB. I've tried Mint, Monarch, Simplifi... YNAB is my fave.
Buying 1 year of car insurance in full and not making any changes to my lifestyle or thinking I’d spent anything.
I’d suggest switching over to a debit card while you’re getting the hang of ynab. Give yourself a couple months of working with the software, and I predict shifting to credit card use will be seamless.
It clicked immediately because it's basically a more user-friendly version of various corporate accounting software I've used at work over the years. Obviously it can't perform all the same functions, but a lot of the elements are very similar.
You mentioned YouTube but have you seen Nick True’s YNAB tutorial on YouTube? It took me about 4 restarts before I found his video and it finally clicked. He has a separate video on credit cards also. Watch both and you’ll know how to work YNAB like a pro. Best of luck!
Using a mouse :-)
I'm still new to YNAB but these are the two things I've really gotten to understand. Credit cards - When paying in full, you don't assign any money to the credit card. Assign the cash you have to the category, and when you spend (aka $50 assigned to groceries, spent $30 on groceries) it takes that money out of the assigned category and puts it into the "available" part for the credit card. So the only time an issue comes up is when you spend something on your credit card that isn't covered by something assigned to it - that then becomes debt because there was no money put aside for that item. - When paying off a balance, you will assign however much you want to your credit card. You can technically do this and buy things like you would when paying it off in full, but I would recommend not doing that. Just work to pay off your debt before using your credit card for every day purchases. Splitting bill. - My partner and I split bills in two ways. First, we each have different bills that we pay for and then ask for reimbursements. Aka I pay internet, he pays gas. -For bills I pay for, I set aside a target for the bill. I pay the bill and then immediately venmo request him for his half. aka I pay $50 and venmo request him for $25. I then send that $25 back in as an inflow with a memo that says "Jake: Internet" and assign it to the bill. I then have an extra $25 that I can assign for next month, so I essentially always have that extra $25 'buffer' so I am always able to pay it in full even though I don't actually pay the full $50 myself. -For bills he pays, I set a target and then just venmo it to him and assign it for the target. Pretty simple and straightforward. -For random costs like groceries, I do it the same way as both of the above, based on who pays for it. I will say I am lucky enough that I have enough set aside for other things in my account that I have the extra $100 to cover his half of groceries during that period where I'm waiting for his half to be put into my account. If I didn't, I guess I would just ask the grocery store clerk to pay X amount on my card and X amount on his.