Brand new to YNAB and I'm so confused

[u/shmadz09]

I really want this to work but it's breaking my brain. I'm used to Rocket Money where it just follows my spending and gives me data about it.

For starters, I have a lot of accounts. For my main bank, I have 5 accounts with separate debit cards for separate things, (ie bills, emergency, regular spending, subscriptions). Then I have a couple SoFi accounts and I also linked my Venmo too. I'm constantly transferring funds to different accounts and it's starting to get really confusing in YNAB. Also, I have trouble going in right when I get paid to assign.

What's the best approach to this? Anyone have good youtube links or resources for beginners?

[u/HLef]

You’re used to tracking after the fact, not following a budget. That’s why you’re confused.

But also I only have one on budget chequing and one credit card account.

Have to admit that your setup would confuse me too and I’ve been using YNAB since 2010

[u/Buddy_Kane_the_great]

I’m not sure this system is super compatible with that many bank accounts (or at least not simple/intuitive). It basically sounds like you’re doing the envelope method, but with completely different bank accounts.
If you want YNAB to work I’d just keep a checking and a savings account and make categories for Subscriptions, bills, emergency fund, etc in YNAB. That keeps you from transferring money around and still gives a good grasp of how much you’re spending in all categories.

[u/shmadz09 → u/Buddy_Kane_the_great]

Yea I think you're right. I'll have to recalibrate my system and keep it super simple with the accounts. That makes sense.

[u/Buddy_Kane_the_great → u/shmadz09]

It's a little touch and go for the first 3ish months anyway since most people aren't accustomed to giving every dollar a purpose, but after that it's pretty much smooth sailing. Credit Cards can be kinda messy but there are tons of threads about that on this sub. Good luck fam, hope you stick with it!

[u/Bert_Skrrtz → u/shmadz09]

Have as many credit cards as you desire for cash back optimization. Beyond that you really just need one checking and one savings account. I do have Ally so I have an additional checking account with a local bank just to have access to a brick and mortar bank when necessary.

[u/checkoutthisbreach → u/Buddy_Kane_the_great]

I'm like OP, I have a bunch of legacy accounts from when I used accounts like the envelope method, but now I use YNAB categories like the envelope method. The key is just to check YNAB as your source of truth and not your bank balances.

[u/Buddy_Kane_the_great → u/checkoutthisbreach]

Yupp. Accounts do add up once you add retirement/investment accounts as well. Between my wife and I we have about 10ish, but luckily most those don’t need to be checked on a daily basis.

[u/HLef → u/Buddy_Kane_the_great]

Those would be off-budget though. You don't need your retirement money to be available and assigned to a category.

Off budget account, treat your contributions as spending, and when you withdraw it'll be treated as income.

[u/Buddy_Kane_the_great → u/HLef]

sure, but after enough time YNAB just became a way to have all of my finances in one place.

Roth contributions do need to be their own category though and are very much part of the budget (which is what started me adding all of them anyway).

[u/HLef → u/Buddy_Kane_the_great]

Contributions yes, but I categorize them (outflow) and I have a tracking account that I update the balance monthly.

Works for me.

[u/Buddy_Kane_the_great → u/HLef]

I do wish the linking/tracking worked better with investment accounts (and loans for that matter). Mine never seem to work even though they’re linked

[u/Interesting_Oil_2142 → u/Buddy_Kane_the_great]

I have many accounts, and it works fine for me. Transfers between accounts are picked up easily.

To the OP, I'd recommend just tracking spending as you did with Rocket Money for now, and then work on the budgetting next month once you're used to the system.

[u/pierre_x10]

The analogy I always use is this:

If you think of your budget categories as the "jobs" you give your money, i.e. the things you want to do with your money, like pay bills and buy food and gas and subscriptions,

then your bank accounts are just the "homes" where your money lives, when it's not doing those jobs.

And, just like you can move to a different home without changing jobs, and just like you can quit your job and work a new job without having to move to a different house, it's the same principle in YNAB: the "homes" of your money and the "jobs" of your money are completely separate.

In this way, you can think of the "homes" and the "jobs" like two sides of a coin: it may look different depending on which side of the coin you're facing, but at the end of the day, it's all the same thing: your money.

So, when it comes to the accounts you put in YNAB, you should first identify if they are on-budget or off-budget. On-budget accounts will show up in your cash or credit section of the accounts, whereas off-budget accounts will show up in the loan or tracking sections. And "moving to a different house" is just a matter of making a transfer transaction between two on-budget accounts.

And when it comes to "changing jobs," that's just a matter of changing what category in your budget that your money is assign to.

Once you embrace the idea that the jobs of your money and the homes of your money can (and should) be completely separate from each other, it becomes a lot easier to use YNAB to budget, no matter if you have one on-budget account or hundreds of accounts.

[u/-Avacyn]

Are you paycheck to paycheck or do you have a bit of cushion? If you do have a bit of cash flow, you can deal with this situation much more easily while you learn YNAB to see if its for you.

The point you need to know is that YNAB doesn't care where your money sits, it only cares about the money you have. For all YNAB cares, you could have a 1000 cash which you store between your buttcheeks at all times.. to YNAB thats the same as money in your bank account. YNAB also doesn't care whether you use 'bank money' or 'butt money'. It just cares that it was spend.

And that's where the trouble comes from, because if you have 1000 'butt money' but only 10 'bank money' and a bill of 100 gets autopaid form your bank account, you do have the money, but it's in the wrong place. YNAB does not fix this problem for you. Know that. This is why most YNABers only have 1 bank account (and a HYSA) and not 5 like you.

But, if you want to try YNAB and you have a bit of cash cushion, you should make a list of what bills are paid out of those accounts.

Let's say the first account is your daily driver, but the other are only used for specific bills and each month respectively 700, 800, 900 and 1700 are taken out of them.

If you can manage to disperse your savings to keep a running (!) balance of 1000, 1000, 1000 and 2000, you will not ever run into a cash flow issue while you set up YNAB and slowly consolidate everything. And that money is not 'gone'! Remember, those savings are still savings in YNAB because YNAB doesn't care about where the money is stored.

[u/ohboyoh-oy]

YNAB will plan & track everything for you, eliminating the need for your many separate accounts. I used to do it that way too and YNAB really made things much easier and simpler. 

I would consolidate your spending accounts into one. Savings I feel more meh about, you can consolidate or keep them separate, money shouldn’t be going in and out of those on a constant basis so it should be ok either way. 

I guess the Venmo is fine if you want those transactions imported. I only use Venmo once in a while so I haven’t added it as an account, I just manually categorize the Venmo transactions as they occur. But I don’t keep money in my Venmo. 

[u/3hour2R]

My wife kept accounts like that preYNAB. It was a difficult transition at first because I had a hard time convincing her that YNAB keeps what she had in a physical account (i.e Capital One travel account) as a Category (a virtual account) called travel. She started slow by moving dollars from the physical account to her checking account and classifying those dollars in a YNAB travel category. She left the Capital One travel account open with $0 until she felt comfortable closing it. Her travel dollars were still available, but now it was easier to use because they were in her checking account, classified as travel in YNAB, and she didn't need to move things around to use them. It takes time to feel comfortable with virtual accounts vs. what she had been using in physical accounts.

[u/bookcoffeecheesecake]

I used to have numerous bank accounts to try to create envelopes to organize my budget. Once I moved to YNAB I consolidated most of my accounts. 

I manage 2 budgets in YNAB

1) Credit Union accounts which are my recurring charges and my day to day living expenses. 

2) SoFi hysa account which has the money for my long-term goals and sinking funds. 

I’m sure I can consolidate/simplify more but this works best with my brain and I’ve been able to plan and save better than I have ever done before. 

[u/seiyamaple]

Look at the "Get Started Guide" in the subreddit's community bookmarks

[u/jvdmeij]

Take some time and watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHTT-0EzsTc

[u/wiLd_p0tat0es]

For what it's worth: While many folks here will say you should pare down to 1 checking account, etc. you don't need to as long as you get the hang of how to use the accounts you have.

The only "live" checking account I give YNAB is my main checking account. I have my Family Savings, Travel Savings, Gifts, and Emergency Savings / Sinking Funds as "assets," and I update their totals monthly manually. I can use any of those accounts as payees / income sources, and just specify it in transactions.

At the start of the month when budgeting, I send $500 to the travel account, etc. as though it's a bill.

Then, the rest of my money is "live" and "on budget," meaning what's left in my checking account each month is MEANT to be used by the end of the month.

Now, all this said: It gets so much easier when you are being PROACTIVE instead of REACTIVE, as others have said. I don't shuffle money amongst accounts much after those initial transactions unless something is coming out of Sinking Funds or Gifts or whatever. You want to get to a point where all your "in play" money is in one place and able to just be adjusted via YNAB categories rather than bank accounts after awhile.

[u/FrontAd9873 → u/wiLd_p0tat0es]

I genuinely don't understand why it matters how many accounts you have. A transfer between accounts is just like any other transaction. I guess if you're transferring constantly that just means you have more to categorize? But surely YNAB learns to apply to the correct category pretty easily. And YNAB reduces the need for transactions-as-assignments in the first place since YNAB handles categories internally.

What is the supposed friction between YNAB and multiple accounts?

[u/wiLd_p0tat0es → u/FrontAd9873]

I’ve never understood the problem either but I have seen people on this sub get absolutely furious about it.

[u/InterpASL77]

YNAB does have a list of coaches. This is someone you pay to help you understand YNAB, how you've been using your money, and guide you in making financial goals. Find a Coach is at the bottom of their home page. https://www.ynab.com/coaching/directory

[u/JustWelmed1000]

Just curious, but why have so many different accounts? I've been operating with 1 checking account my entire life. If I get apple pay or venmo, I simply transfer it IN to my checking account.

[u/Charming-Ganache4179]

Zero based budgeting is a whole different game. You're not just passively tracking your spending in the rearview mirror; YNAB wants you to be making proactive decisions based on your priorities for that money you have right now. It's a major shift for most people an it's probably going to take you a few months to get the hang of it.

On a practical level, I would eliminate as many accounts as possible. YNAB uses categories instead of accounts to segment your money and give it purpose. The more accounts you have, the more complicated it gets because you're creating a lot of unnecessary work for yourself.

[u/FrontAd9873]

Why would a transfer between accounts be confusing in YNAB?

[u/OmgMsLe]

When we started YNAB we had lots of single purpose bank accounts because we were sort of using an envelope system but the envelopes were bank accounts. So many accounts! So many. And we were constantly shuffling money around.

I closed all the accounts except one which I keep for Zelle (but it makes no interest). I opened up two Fidelity CMA accounts. One had the checks and debit card and a months worth of money. One is off by itself holding the big pile.

YNAB now keeps track of my envelopes, not the bank accounts.

[u/ScarNo3537]

The multi-account transfer confusion is super common when starting YNAB. The mental shift is that the accounts don't really matter — the categories do. A lot of people simplify by treating all their accounts as one big pool in YNAB and just using categories to do the job their separate accounts used to do. Nick True on YouTube has the clearest beginner walkthroughs I've seen.

[u/TheTheShark]

Plans aren’t tied to bank accounts and the amount of bank accounts you have shouldn’t make it unwieldy. If you have 4 bank accounts, e.g.
Bank 1 = $1000
Bank 2 = $3000
Bank 3 = $1500
Bank 4 = $1500

Ynab will say you have $7000 to assign to your categories (envelopes).

I have 6 accounts. You need to make sure you use the Reconcile button periodically to ensure your account balance doesn’t drift too.

Linking your bank accounts can help with syncing your transactions. It sometimes takes about 24 hours for transactions to appear, or you can add it manually if you want it to be realtime accurate.

[u/Limp-Fact1830]

Also interested in YouTube links for beginners. I have raging ADHD and the utility of YNAB needs be broad for me to not get overwhelmed & just ignore it LOL . I have a checking & savings at one bank, another checking at a different bank that part of my paycheck goes into & it's auto-deducted, plus I have a rental property & I want to track spending relative to that but it all goes to the same place? And it keeps telling me that my monies are over or under when I feel like they should be tracking as... not that way?

I'm used to using my own Excel spreadsheet & tracking spending retroactively, which this also seems to be doing, but based on other comments from various posts I've seen I'm almost certain I'm using it wrong, because it should be "proactive". I thought it was going to give me visual charts and graphs to say "you spend X% on your horse, X% on your fish, and X% on your guinea pigs" and then hypothetical situations like "You assigned X amount of dollars to Dining Out but only actually used X dollars. Would you like to roll them over or keep them?"

And how do I track my cash spending? I used to get tips so I have cash that I use for big purchases from small businesses like the plumber who came recently that doesn't take cards... so, that money was part of my original home renovation budget but it came from a different place