New to YNAB and read the materials and watched videos but I’m not getting this part. Help me understand assigned and available? I transferred money don’t understand what happened. Isn’t the money there since I budgeted it in my categories? It’s asking me for more

Please explain like I’m 5. Like what color should it be? Yellow is ok? Am I aiming for green? I transferred money and it turned green even though the numbers aren’t equal, so what does that mean?

I’m coming from Empower and have linked all the same accounts over. I do have 2 HYSA thru Empower but they won’t sync over. Anyone have success linking these accounts?

I still plan to use Empower for my long term financial planning (net worth, brokerages etc) but they’re not great for the tracking budgeting. I’d hate to have to close out the HYSA for something else that does link. If linking isn’t possible, any recommendations on what does link easily? At today’s rates hovering around 3.5% I’m not too concerned about a fraction of a percent difference here.

Ok YNAB hivemind, I could use some help figuring out how to categorize some upcoming transactions….

Background: My partner and I will be closing on a house in a couple of weeks, and we’re moving out of our rental at the end of August. In the intervening time we’re putting some new floors in, getting other floors resurfaced, fixing a couple of things up, etc. We’re using contractors for all of this.

Currently the money that will be used for all of this is sitting in a sinking savings category.

For the maintenance and renovation expenses, I’m not too worried about how we categorize them. We might create a general “house“ category….we might split it up a few ways….we’ll figure it out…

First question for y’all is what to do with the closing costs. One time “home purchase” category? Just under a general “house“ category?

Second question, what to do with the moving expenses? (we’re hiring a couple of guys and a truck, plus we’ll need some supplies to patch the walls and clean our rental etc) ”Moving“ category? Combined “Home Purchase and Move” category? What do we think?

Third question and this is the one I’m struggling with most. The return of the securit deposit… We signed the rental agreement on this house before we were using YNAB, so technically it’s “new money” to the budget and therefore would need to be Inflow: RTA right? That just feels weird to me in a way that other refunds didn’t when we started our current budget… it’s 2 months rent, so not an insubstantial amount of money. But it also seems wrong to assign it to a category… because then it reduces our spend right? I guess either way you can filter it out of whichever side of the reports it ends up on, I just can’t decide what’s is best…

I‘d appreciate any insights you all have!

Some of my categories don’t show up in the filter for me to uncheck so my reflect spending breakdown is wrong.

Now that I look at it again, it’s all categories with debt payments (mortgage and student loans).

Any ideas?

Why can’t I see progress bar and assigned at the same time any more?

Is there a way to fix it

Running into a bug I can’t shake. I have a “Have a Balance of $X by Date” target on my Emergency Fund category:

Target: $10,200 by Dec 2026

Current category balance: $7,701.43

Months remaining: 5 (Aug–Dec)

That math should come out to roughly $500/month. Instead YNAB is telling me I need $1,700/month, which is throwing my whole monthly plan into the red and making it look like my targets exceed my monthly income.

I’ve tried deleting and recreating the category etc. None of it recalculates the monthly number. It just keeps showing $1,700 regardless of what my actual category balance is.

Including screenshots here!

I checked my uncleared transactions on my Citi card and there were about a dozen that went back to the beginning of the month.

Even with these sitting there whenever I reconcile it said it was successful. I took screenshots of some of these transactions that were almost a month old at this point and then deleted them after making sure they were no longer pending on my credit card and doing a resync in YNAB.

After doing so I still was able to reconcile without any issue but now my categories have more money in them. I looked at the statement and account onl and things dont totally line up but I am thinking that maybe because of how YNAB gradually syncs things and sometimes when Walmart posts things values change.

Just really confused.. I do transaction categorization and reconciling every day so I am surprised things seemed this off. Did I screw up the budget?

Update: Thank you everyone for your responses. You helped me figure out my problem. I didn't realize it was pulling money from other accounts. I am fixing this so I won't have this confusion.

I need some help. I have been using YNAB for a while. As a very visual ADHD'er where out of sight is out of mind, I really appreciate how it has helped me "see" where my money is.

Somehow, the dollar total in my plan is very different from the dollar total in my bank account, even though I reconcile and the numbers balance. Let me explain how I think I got there.

Say in April you put in $40 in a category, use $30, then have $10 left over. In May, you have that $10 but still should put in $40. In the past, there have been times I have taken the "extra" $10 a subsequent month or so, and moved it to another category or ready to be assigned. Things have worked out fine.

Things got really tight for a bit, so instead of waiting until the next month, using the example above, I moved the extra money in April, to ready to be assigned, in April. ($40 - $30 = $10 left over, $10 moved)

After doing that for a couple of months, I find myself here. It seems I have about $800 more in my plan to be paid out than actual dollars in my bank account. Yes, it is still reconciled and balances.

Can someone explain what might be happening and how to get myself back to a number I trust?

Thank you!!

I just started using YNAB at the beginning of this month, after realizing my strategy of "Eh, the money thing will work out," wasn't working anymore. I got a text this morning from my bank, saying that my monthly auto insurance had been deducted from my account. I had a moment of panic thinking, "I don't think I can cover that!" and then realized, "No, wait, I had it fully funded on YNAB. It's already been accounted for." Such a good feeling! Looking forward to feeling that way all the time, eventually.

So what's the difference between a red overspent category and a yellow overspent category?

Answered. Thanks again everyone.

Yellow means it was spent on credit. And red meant I spent actual money.

Hello,

I've been maintaining a YNAB budget for years now with a single Chase plaid connection for multiple cards that has worked without issue. Recently, my significant other opened a new rewards card with Chase that I'd like to incorporate into the YNAB budget, so having 2 different Chase users using the Plaid interface in a single YNAB Budget. Unfortunately, while I was able to log into the Chase portal and successfully log-in, I am unable to view the new card in the existing budget.

Is there a best practices or recommendation to make this work? Thanks

I just stumbled upon something that can be a solution (still have to test it out for a longer period of time) for people managing multi currency accounts and transactions.
Since I am in a european country I use lunch flow to automate the transactions. I have discovered that you can offset the balance in the bank account by a custom number. So if your main currency is euro but you have a bank account in $ you would offset it by the going rate (which would have to updated manually from time to time). Curious to see how it will go for transactions. Is anyone using this method to handle multi currency accounts? I really hate the separate budget method and used the currency converter toolkit until now.

Ever since around January I've moved and increased my spending and it's hard to tell if it's going up since then. Feels like you need a years worth of data before you can tell, via the graph. Any way to put like... red dots or something on my pay days so I can more accurately tell?

Hi there, I am just getting started with YNAB and am following along with Nick True's tutorial for getting set up, and despite thinking I would be reasonably savvy at figuring it out, I've hit an apparent roadblock right from the get go.

I bank with the Washington State Employee's Credit Union, and when I linked that bank account under 'checking', it didn't give me the option to select the checking account itself; everything was combined into a singular WSECU 'account' that got linked and labeled as my checking account in YNAB, but the dollar amount is actually the combined total of both my checking account and several different savings account I hold with them.

This continued to be a roadblock because the main (and pretty much only) credit card that I use is also through WSECU, and there is no way to link or add that account specifically either; when I try to link a credit card account and put the login in credentials for WSECU, it says that institution is already linked, referring to the Checking/Savings combo 'account'.

Am I missing something painfully obvious here to do differently? Or is it possible that WSECU doesn't provide access to the credit card account specifically or a breakdown of individual checkings and savings accounts?

Has anyone else run into this issue? I have tried googling it and searching in other threads and haven't come across folks discussing this particular challenge.

Please advise! Thank you so much in advance

Edit: Fwiw I'm aware that worst case scenario I can add the credit card but keep it unlinked, and even do the same for the checking account to keep it separate from all the savings accounts; the account linking feature was just a big part of the appeal for me of stepping into YNAB land and developing a system that I could more realistically keep up with!

I get why investing is considered an out flow. Because its money not actively in a bank account. But I would have hoped that it was classified differently. Reason being is because its not a true "soending", rather a different bucket of savings. Reason im annoyed is because im trying to figure out why my spending is 4k higher this month than it should be and its all due to investments. I wish ynab would have a different bucket for true spending vs investment contributions.

When I go to assign money from RTA, the credit card wants $214.06.

$214.06 matches the last two transactions in my account.

Both of these transactions are categorized, and money was moved from their categories into the cc. So why does YNAB want to assign double money to the cc?

Also: is there a way to move transactions back into the pending tab?

I tried to search but I might have missed.

I'm wondering, I am going to be buying a cruise and the payment allows the $1000 deposit today, with the remainder due on January.

Should I just create 2 individual categories and set one for $1000 now, and the other with a date for when the remainder needs to be paid?

If so, then do I just.. discard those categories once I am done? Or do people usually have a bunch of categories that remain empty for a long time?

When I first started using YNAB a couple of months ago, I was too broad with some of my categories. E.g. 'TV, phone and internet' - it has the correct number of £ but will prove frustrating whenever one of these services has a price change. Same for 'Utilities and council tax'!

Most of my categories are fine and service-specific so I don't want to start over, but I'm unsure how or when to un-bundle without making YNAB unhappy. Would doing this on the last day of July (before the next month kicks in) be a good idea? Any advice appreciated.

I have been using YNAB since January of this year. By being aware of expenses and being intentional with meet money goal, I was a month ahead start in May and have been working on savings since. I don’t make a huge salary but comfortable, but I have a mortgage, student loan, private loan, and car payment. And I had to get trees taken down last week, so another $5k last week.

Last week, I noticed water spots and mildew on my shower ceiling. It’s right under the upstairs shower. Someone came to look at it, and it’s a leak. The plumber fixed it thanks to a service warranty I have with them. The contractor price to replace the ceiling was ridiculous, and the shower was leaking in a corner as well. I got a few quotes on a shower replacement thinking it wouldn’t be that much more expensive.

Long story short, I’m getting a new walk in shower. I don’t have all the money upfront, but got 18 month 0% interest financing. Thanks to YNAB, I played with my targets and I know exactly what I need to do to cover the price of the shower without interest.

Last year, I would have been a wreck! YNAB has changed my life so much.

Is anyone on here a SoFi user with the new Smart Card?
For context, the Smart Card is a new card from SoFi that gives you 5% cash back on groceries only. My spending limit is whatever I have in my savings and checking account.
The problem is that transactions don’t show anywhere. And grocery purchases don’t get transferred to YNAB. In fact, nothing gets transferred to YNAB. Until it automatically pays off once a month.
Obviously, you can pay it off anytime manually.
For now, I am just going to wait until it pays monthly and add it to my groceries category in YNAB at that time.
Does this seem like the best way to categorize this new card?
Or does somebody have a better way of doing it?

I am using an iPad for budgeting with the app and until the last update I could always assign underfunded money, see activity of that month and clear money very quickly. It’s not just the clear button (that seems to be the only thing mentioned by others) that’s being hidden now. As an EU user I try to keep my budget every week, since I need to input everything manually. Being able to assign money very quickly and see where my money goes in 1 click was always very helpful.

Assigning underfunded money: Before whenever I overspend in a category I click assign money and click underfunded. This would automatically assign the underfunded money and I voila it would be done. BUT now when you click underfunded, it opens a pop-up and forces me to move money from another category and can’t automatically assign it from my income. So what I have to do now is assigning the specific amount of money by hand, instead of heaving it automatically added. Why would they delete such a useful and speedy action.

Pop up activity in 1 click: Whenever I assign (underfunded) money, I would often check the activity that you could click next to the assigned amount. This always helps me to understand and make you more aware what money has been spend exactly. So before I could click activity and it would show a pop up of the activity in 1 click, easy! BUT now the activity is NOT clickable at all, when you click it will react on the assigned money instead. The only way to open activity now is either click on assigned, click on details, click on activity of that month and the pop up will show OR richt click (or hold when not using a mouse) on activity and choose view activity and it will open a full screen activity screen. The problem with the last option is you leave the plan and open the activity in full screen, so you have to go back every time so thats another click and completely distracts me from where I was and more delay. Why would they delete the clickable function of quickly open a pop-up activity box. This was always so useful!

The new UI really frustrates me and I guess I will have to do until my next renewal in March, but I hope they will realize they are loosing clients with this (it’s hella expensive for unwanted updates). Sure every time an update was done, it needed some time getting used at but this last update is a big downgrade. I’ve been a paid user for over 15+ years so I’ve been going through some bumps and changes but this latest one really gets on my nerves. The hidden clear sign is obviously a really weird and not very useful change which I hope will change back. But I hope these other 2 changes are a bug and not something they did on purpose and will change back in the next update. And if they are on purpose, WHY!?

I’ve used YNAB for years. I have a strong understanding of how credit cards work in YNAB and it’s actually one of my favorite features. I can’t for the life of me figure out why this category overspending is red when it occurred on a credit card which has historically always been yellow. I have the funds and ability to correct the overspending but this credit card has been randomly short a few times in its balance even when all category overspending was covered and all charges were in the budget and I’m wondering if this kind of thing is why. The overspending showing up red vs. yellow indicating it was credit card and it debit. Wondering if anyone has any thoughts.

I had my credit card scheduled to pay today and noticed it said I had a negative payment of $148.57. From a money perspective this is not an issue, I can easily transfer that money to make it right. But i am curious what caused it. I am assuming 1 or more of my purchases didn't have enough money in the category for it to move to cover the balance. So I went through and checked every transaction against the activity for the card for the last month and was able to line up the charge with the same activity/transferring of money from the original category to the card for payment.

I do use this card quite a lot but pay it off every month or as close as I can. Given I use it so much if i schedule the payment for a few days from now, inevitably I will incur more charges between the 2. So technically I don't always fully pay it off, but I definitely cover all of last months charges so I am never charged interest. I would feel like that would make this easy to catch. I did not that have a negative payment last month that I am aware of, only this month.

Is there a better/easier way to figure out what purchase(s) were not fully covered? Wouldn't it cause the purchase category balance to go negative?

Last detail, I will admit I don't use my credit card in YNAB properly. It is a joint card between my wife and I. We have separate checking accounts and she refuses to join me in ynab and to be honest I think it would make even more work for me lol. So when she uses the card for something, mostly GrubHub a couple times a week. I just let her dining out category go negative until she transfers me the money at which point I make it right in YNAB.I know this is not good because it does cause issues if I miss a charge that imported late in the previous month. But so far its the best system I have had. I mention this for 2 reasons. It is the reason for the $52.99 overspending currently showing in my screenshot. 2. Again to show I am not using the card properly, so its probably likely this issue is due to my bad habits. That being said I did temporarily cover that overspend and as expected it change the negative payment by that amount making the actual negative payment only $95.58. I searched for that amount on the credit card and do not see it so I believe this issue is the result of 2 or more charges not being covered. If it was just one for that amount I think it would have been easy to find.

So again, how can i figure out what charges weren't covered to cause this? I have no overspend in any category from last month, I even unhid hidden categories just to be sure.