We have an "emergency fund" of six months of income but it is so easy to pull from it for silly stuff like over spending on vacation or for more extravagant holiday presents and it frequently gets whittled down. We specifically have it as a buffer in case of job loss because we are a one income family. I never thought about renaming it to earmark it specifically as income savings in order to reduce the temptation to spend it frivolously.
I had such an epiphinatic moment when I realized this using YNAB. Honestly, it took me 3 trials of YNAB to feel comfortable breaking up the $6,000 I had in savings - literally called my "Rainy Day Fund" in my bank.. but I COULD NOT get over the fact that I had to assign that money to a category. I don't know why this was such a mental obstacle for me. I believe the relationship most people have with savings (when they're good at saving) is to just hoard it away and to never use it, but that's not what savings are meant to do!
That's a subject I couldn't wait to see discussed. It's funny to see how we went on a similar path . We started with a checking account and a couple of savings accounts linked to category groups. I saw my wife (the family's accountant) spending hours reconciling and moving money around. When we finally made the move from YNAB 4 to the new one last year, I suggested to decouple the accounts from the categories. We went with a waterfall approach. Every dollar above 10K in checking goes to savings, and every dollar above 30K in savings goes to a low risk ETF for long term. Took us some time to get used to, but at least now moving money around only matters when we do a big expense like car purchase.
"The waterfall approach" - I really like the visual that presents to someone wondering how much they should keep in their accounts. Thanks for sharing! ~Ernie
This was very timely for me. I was trying to keep my savings acct balance exactly the same as the group of savings items in YNAB. I’m not going to sweat it any more. Thanks!
THIS. I was upset I couldn't find dollars to budget toward getting a month ahead, only to realize I was putting money toward a general emergency fund which I could use to budget instead (for those existing "emergency" categories). I got rid of it and gave those dollars jobs and was actually 3 months ahead! Most helpful shift in mindset I ever had. I share it with everyone I know who uses YNAB!
So you mean if I want to put away an emergency fund of money of years worth of expenses I basically just want to be a year ahead in my budget and that's the same thing? Maybe mind blown 🤯 please clarify
@@dwaynedemaurivert8638 I believe we’re saying the same thing! For example: One month’s expenses = $1000 Emergency fund = $3000 I got rid of the emergency fund, which left me money To Be Budgeted. I budgeted the $3000 toward the following months, and had 3 months of expenses fully covered! Hope that’s what you understood from it! ☺️
@@melissaignacio4758 yes make sense put that emergency fund to use and makes you think alot more vividly about everything it's literally the same thing that's what the emergency fund is for and If something came up then looks like you are taking away from a future month and when you have extra money it's just going to set up a future month my goal now is to have 365 day old money 🤑
@@dwaynedemaurivert8638 I found if I assigned the money right away, I felt more prepared and not guilty I was taking from an emergency fund! Who knew money was so emotional! 😛 You and I have the same goal! Good luck my friend! ☺️
@@melissaignacio4758 lmao right I was confused for awhile I'm like how to I plan the month ahead If I'm putting all my extra in an emergency fund lol you want to have a year's worth of expenses ahead too?
Every dollar has a job - love that! I had multiple bank accounts and after a couple of months using YNAB, I combined them with one checking and one savings (lots of categories, but love it so much better). I don't have to hassle with transferring money all the time. Budgeting is the name of the game
My mindset on the savings account shifted when I decided that the “savings” categories were Savings With Intention. The intention may be a less stressful emergency, paying income taxes, a vacation, or the internet bill that’s due next week.
I just started YNAB and savings was something that really puzzled me. I felt like I wasn’t really saving anything into my emergency fund because I was just budgeting ahead. However, I realized that even though I only have 1 month of expenses saved, I am also a month ahead in my budget so really I have a 2 month emergency fund. 🤯
I definitely consolidated a LOT when I moved over to YNAB, and had the same mental struggle that a lot of people have! But I now love to not have to worry about transferring. I still have my emergency fund separately, since it does have a higher APY than my checking (which still has a high yield, but not as high as savings!). I also have two separate accounts for my kid that were opened by family that I never enter into YNAB. If I get checks/money gifts for his birthday/holidays, I put those in separately since it isn't "my" money. It's amazing how much money I have now (even though I'm YNAB Broke :D), when I used to be paycheck to paycheck. It's really amazing!! Thanks YNAB!
Savings, and categories within, is the best part of YNAB for me. Before I never had a clear purpose. Now I have a fully funded emergency account, and other accounts such as "new" car, "next" home, vacation, home maintenance (hot water heater/furnace, etc) and many others. Can always change/update savings categories or move $ around. Wish I had YNAB years ago.
I agree: really only need one account. And just follow the budget. But I have expanded my accounts - added another debit (for fraud) and savings too ( to build a relationship with a local credit union). Also, added a holiday savings account with that CU . It’s funny though, it does complicate the bookkeeping. When I expense a gift, have to move money around: bit of a hassle!
yes with ynab I almost don't know what to say when people ask "how much do you save each month?" because like y'all I said I don't really transfer money from checking to saving to measure that anymore. and I don't spend a lot more of the money I make then just what I budget towards "saving" categories.
You can figure this out with the “Income v Expense” report, the only thing to look out for are transfers to a tracking account as those show up as spending when they should be considered saving.
Don't mind me just binging old vids. The biggest mentality shift for me has been going to 1 savings account and 1 checking account.. trusting my budget! I also re-assigned some money from my emergency fund category and assigned it to living expenses in the future.. for whatever reason that makes me feel better than it sitting in a single category and ear marked as "x-months expenses". I did keep some $$ in the emergency fund to cover deductibles and things.
I have also spent a huge amount of time focusing on account balances and category balances - and wow, it just does not matter! How freeing is that!? Awesome. The important thing is the job of the dollars. We have a single checking account and a single savings account, and then we have all the categories. It has been a huge mindset shift. It's huge to realize every category is a savings category. I kind of came to that realization in just the past couple of weeks, before seeing this video and now it is all so very clear lol. thank you.
I feel like this is overlooking a key part of savings as opposed to checking accounts which is savings accounts typically have higher interest rates. So the reason you try to have a lot of money moved to savings ASAP is to start making extra money on the money you already have. To throw away that chance at extra money by putting it all in a checking account seems like poor budgeting practice, no?
You mentioned eliminating savings accounts and only having a checking account. What about security concerns? If you only have a checking account, if your checking account gets hacked and drained, you have no funds available for anything. I know with FDIC the funds will likely be recovered, but that takes time... what do you do in the meantime?
I am a million years late. Sorry, Robert. That is the one good argument for having more than one account. I think I mentioned at the end of the video, my one checking account is getting pretty large as I save for True Expenses and I'm thinking of breaking it up for a little extra security. ~BenB
@@YNABofficial Thanks for the response - better late than never! I love YNAB and now that I’m retired I find it even more useful and important to my financial well-being. Keep up the good work!
In europe savings accounts gives you interest so of course I use ynab to save but before the month changes i move money from my checking to my savings in my real accounts and save the transactions too
When I was very young and had a savings account there is something called a savings and loan Bank and it was paying about 14% interest. Back when banks used to pay actual interest to customers.
I’m still attached to looking at my bank accounts because YNAB always says I have $0! Hoping to let this habit go eventually. Or maybe I’ll just look at my Net Worth report to get my thrills. I’ve always lived day to day until YNAB so it’s still exciting to see money in my account just sitting there for future me.
One problem I have with all money being in one account say checking is that all money is exposed to fraud. I like keeping some money in separate accounts for protection. Particularly if you have exposed your checking account to a DEBIT card. Never should do this by the way.
Makes sense. Yes. All it takes is one issue. Happened to me. My account was shut down for a week to get a new debit card. So I opened another as a back up. (Note: bank does give a temp # to use, but I waited for the card).
Looking at my bank accounts on a daily basis (as part of the 5 minutes reconciliations that I do on YNAB) also provides a protection again fault. The quicker it is reported to your bank the quicker it is resolved. Also I use a small balance credit card for online purchase and if a website looks a bit dodgy I opt for the paypal method of payment (wherever offered) to provide that separation of credit card details from the vendor.
I went from having multiple savings accounts to Ally bank and buckets. Now I’m getting rid of the buckets so I don’t have to keep matching them to my YNAB budget. Takes too much time. 😂 I do have a checking and a savings at 2 different banks. Might put my emergency fund in a bond. Hadn’t thought of that. 🤔
I actually still have a variety of accounts (checking/savings with a big bank AND a credit union, plus an online account) b/c it would be too much trouble to close them. However, I have one category in my budget with a line to represent 4 of the 5 accounts that I can ignore b/c it really is savings, and then literally all the rest of budget comes out of my primary checking.
One issue I had with savings was my cash on hand fund. Before I initially treated as TBB and assigned jobs to it. But since I don't typically pay for things in cash I realized I was over funding what I would consider available funds in the bank. I ended up creating a cash savings category and try to Reconcile that with actually cash on hand. Another topic I would love for you to discuss would be kids allowances. I tried many ways but ended up creating a separate budget for which seems to be working.
Veronica our kids pocket money simply leaves the budget. Scheduled transaction comes out weekly from our account to theirs then it’s gone from our budget. Simple 😀
I am new to YNAB as of two weeks ago. :) I have never budgeted a day in my life because I couldn’t do it in the traditional way. I manually track everything. The stuff about savings accounts doesn’t make sense to me yet-as in how I account for that. If I want to transfer from my main chequing to a savings account, what is the best way to account for that on YNAB? I hear what y’all are saying but I think I missed the plot lol
If both accounts are in YNAB, then that is just a “transfer - nothing special to do. Wherever that money lives though (checking or savings), you just budget it into whatever category/purpose it has (emergency fund? Future auto maintenance? Summer trip?). Good luck!
Howdy, Tiffany! You can enter a special transfer transaction. If both accounts are on budget, you won't need a category. This doc will break it down for you! docs.youneedabudget.com/article/168-making-a-transfer
Hey Ben and Ernie! Thanks for the coaching and discussion. We are midway through consolidating accounts as you described. Yay! Very curious about the HSA topic. Would you share a blog or youtube url that describes the transactions of using a HSA that replenishes the spending from checking/budget? Thanks.
@@YNABofficial thank you. I have read this article. I'm interested to know if your medical category, that is repaid by HSA, goes negative between the time the bill is paid and HSA reimbursed is posted. and is that ever between months, where YNAB will not carry over negative budget balances. what do you do then? I have been borrowing from another savings category each month so zero the negative medical category.
@@mikesushynski8175 I myself pay for medical bills straight out of my HSA, which I have in my budget as a Tracking Account. So I haven't experienced trouble with reimbursements. But if I did, I think I would treat it the same way I would any other reimbursement. Either cover the expense with money from other categories until it's reimbursed, or if I spent it on a credit card, you could possibly let it sit negative until you get the reimbursement. This doc may help! ~BenB docs.youneedabudget.com/article/183-reimbursements
hahaha. YNAB broke. It's so real. It's SO awesome. I still haven't broken free from my savings account with some 'emergency money'. I don't know how bad the emergency would have to be for me to actually use it, because....well I didn't use it in 2020. So. It really feels like a complete safety net for like, complete and total devastation. Whatever that looks like beyond 2020 but I'm picturing like, Wall-E.
Emergency Fund has to be clearly defined, or the idea of just piling up a bunch of uncategorized cash is pointless. Is it unexpected? (overspending for groceries isn't an emergency) Is it necessary? Do we need this money asap?? Without clear boundaries EFs are pointless, but set those boundaries and a nice EF is really peaceful.
Solid perspective. Curious about how one could deep dive into setting clear boundaries. I envision making a checklist, or a set of questions, to ask myself.
So, it sounds like it's not a bad idea if you're new to YNAB (like I am) to have multiple categories within your savings category that are specific; and to have separate accounts. (That's what you both did in the beginning). But, then, after you're consistent with using your budget, you don't have a need to have separate accounts necessarily because your budget identifies where those saving dollars are spoken for and there's not really a risk of spending them because what you've earmarked them for, e.g., retirement, vacation - isn't happening right now. Do I have that right?
Kathleen, you nailed it! Your budget will not only tell you where all of your savings dollars have been allocated, but you'll now know "I can't spend those dollars, because I gave them the job of being 'vacation dollars' or 'retirement dollars.'" Kind of an out of sight, out of mind thing! -Hannah 🌻
Thank you, Hannah. I'm still pretty challenged with how the allocations line up (or don't) with actual dollars but I'm sticking with it and am grateful for all the supports you have in place. @@YNABofficial
Kathleen, keep milking our resources! If you haven't signed up a live workshop yet with one of our teachers, I'd highly recommend it! They'll give you a quick little tutorial and then they offer a Q&A session where you can ask whatever questions you need a little help with and they'll answer em live with a demonstration! SUPER helpful! There's also tons on RU-vid. Wishing you the best on your journey! WAY TO GO for giving our method a strong and fair shot!! You got it, Kathleen!! -Hannah 🌻
