5 ms·

This was my experience as well. I used Mint and YNAB off and on through my 20's when I was less responsible with money. As I got older and was able to consist

by mason55 10y ago

This was my experience as well. I used Mint and YNAB off and on through my 20's when I was less responsible with money. As I got older and was able to consistently reduce my expenses and my salary went way up I found that my spending was so far below my income that tracking just didn't make sense any more. Combined with a bunch of automated transfers for short- and long-term saving and keeping a large buffer of cash in my bank account, I don't really ever think about money any more.

ndonnellan 10y ago
Something that I haven't seen mentioned here is the benefit of budgeting for things that you want to spend money on but do irregularly enough that you might forget. I was never irresponsible with money, instead I just tended to save and save (and think I was saving a lot) and not really know what to do with it. Now that I'm consistent with budgeting (YNAB), I'm confident I'm saving for the future AND for things like birthdays, xmas, charity, cycling, etc and spend more on those things. It's like a contract with myself. I totally agree with a corollary you're implying to "you can't change what you don't track": - "It's meaningless to track something that doesn't change" I can see a future where I stop tracking incidental or recurring, automatic bills and just focus on those other things.
- Infernal 10y ago
  My wife and I have been using YNAB for almost four years, right after the most recent non-cloud version was released. The biggest thing it has helped us with is accounting for regular but infrequent expenses, with respect to having reasonable expectations for the limits on our regular and frequent expenses. Before, if we had a month where our bi-annual car insurance bill coincided with our quarterly pest control bill and a higher-than-normal utility bill (say a hotter or colder month than usual), then we would have a very thin month and need to really cut back on discretionary stuff. Now, YNAB makes it super easy to set money aside each month for those infrequent expenses, such that there is always a just-the-right-size pot of money sitting there when the bill comes up. Now, for example, we never have to change our grocery buying routine in response to other expenses, as those other expenses are accounted for a piece at a time every month. Even utilities, I average the last 12 months of utility bills, and set that amount aside every month. When we have a low bill, that pot grows, and when we have a high bill, that pot shrinks, but no other spending or saving is affected by those fluctuations. It's great. I'm tempted to move to something like ledger/hledger or some other plain-text accounting tool when YNAB 4 goes out of support, but the thing I'm not sure how to implement in those systems is YNAB's categories, the "virtual envelopes". Does anyone have a better idea than this? https://gist.github.com/simonmichael/a1addcb652da4e78b183 https://gist.github.com/simonmichael/a1addcb652da4e78b183
  - bloat 10y ago
    There's a few options if you google "envelope budgeting ledger-cli".
restalis 10y ago
"I don't really ever think about money any more" I see myself in a similar situation, but in my case the thought is "I don't really ever worry about money any more", which is different. That large buffer cash can be invested, or (if it's significantly large to your interest) - hedged, at least. That requires thought.
- mason55 10y ago
  Yeah I think that my key was automating the big pieces. By the time I automated retirement savings, short-term savings, long-term savings, and all my big expenses (really just rent since I don't have a car). With all that automated, and my savings levels being very aggressive, I just need to make sure the buffer in my checking account doesn't go down each month. If it gets a little lower then maybe I skip a few meals out for a month. But I will say, to get to this point took many years of trying to budget and "failing". Using those tools helped by letting me internalize my spending and re-baselining what "normal" spending felt like. I put "failing" in quotes because each time I went over budget or stopped tracking for a few months I felt like I had failed but in reality I was learning what worked for me.

by mason55 10y ago

ndonnellan 10y ago

Something that I haven't seen mentioned here is the benefit of budgeting for things that you want to spend money on but do irregularly enough that you might forget. I was never irresponsible with money, instead I just tended to save and save (and think I was saving a lot) and not really know what to do with it. Now that I'm consistent with budgeting (YNAB), I'm confident I'm saving for the future AND for things like birthdays, xmas, charity, cycling, etc and spend more on those things. It's like a contract with myself. I totally agree with a corollary you're implying to "you can't change what you don't track": - "It's meaningless to track something that doesn't change" I can see a future where I stop tracking incidental or recurring, automatic bills and just focus on those other things.

Infernal 10y ago
My wife and I have been using YNAB for almost four years, right after the most recent non-cloud version was released. The biggest thing it has helped us with is accounting for regular but infrequent expenses, with respect to having reasonable expectations for the limits on our regular and frequent expenses. Before, if we had a month where our bi-annual car insurance bill coincided with our quarterly pest control bill and a higher-than-normal utility bill (say a hotter or colder month than usual), then we would have a very thin month and need to really cut back on discretionary stuff. Now, YNAB makes it super easy to set money aside each month for those infrequent expenses, such that there is always a just-the-right-size pot of money sitting there when the bill comes up. Now, for example, we never have to change our grocery buying routine in response to other expenses, as those other expenses are accounted for a piece at a time every month. Even utilities, I average the last 12 months of utility bills, and set that amount aside every month. When we have a low bill, that pot grows, and when we have a high bill, that pot shrinks, but no other spending or saving is affected by those fluctuations. It's great. I'm tempted to move to something like ledger/hledger or some other plain-text accounting tool when YNAB 4 goes out of support, but the thing I'm not sure how to implement in those systems is YNAB's categories, the "virtual envelopes". Does anyone have a better idea than this? https://gist.github.com/simonmichael/a1addcb652da4e78b183 https://gist.github.com/simonmichael/a1addcb652da4e78b183
- bloat 10y ago
  There's a few options if you google "envelope budgeting ledger-cli".

restalis 10y ago

"I don't really ever think about money any more" I see myself in a similar situation, but in my case the thought is "I don't really ever worry about money any more", which is different. That large buffer cash can be invested, or (if it's significantly large to your interest) - hedged, at least. That requires thought.

mason55 10y ago
Yeah I think that my key was automating the big pieces. By the time I automated retirement savings, short-term savings, long-term savings, and all my big expenses (really just rent since I don't have a car). With all that automated, and my savings levels being very aggressive, I just need to make sure the buffer in my checking account doesn't go down each month. If it gets a little lower then maybe I skip a few meals out for a month. But I will say, to get to this point took many years of trying to budget and "failing". Using those tools helped by letting me internalize my spending and re-baselining what "normal" spending felt like. I put "failing" in quotes because each time I went over budget or stopped tracking for a few months I felt like I had failed but in reality I was learning what worked for me.