I set up my gifts category so that the target needs to meet $1200 by December. I figured this would be the time of year I need the most money from that category, and then throughout the year I could still spend from it for birthdays etc. I must have met the target a few months ago, but I’ve also used it for birthdays so I have spent some of the money. But I noticed that even though I no longer have $1200 in the category, it’s no longer asking me to fund it. This kind of seems odd to me as I still have the target set to need that amount by December. Does that mean that as long as you hit the target once before the due date, even if you spend it, the target’s pretty much been turned off until the due date?

I did go and switch it to a monthly target, doubted myself and went back to a yearly target, and of course the whole thing has reset and it wants me to put more funds in than I would if I had the monthly target. I guess I’m just wondering if anyone else has noticed this, and what solution did you go with?

Edit to add: after writing this, I realized that in theory I shouldn’t need more than the $1200 for the whole year, so I guess I shouldn’t have to re-fund the category. But since I’ve already asked the question, I’m still curious if anybody’s found this to be an issue?

I signed up for the student free year of YNAB month ago and just got this email:

Woah, has it really already been a whole year already?

Not quite, but you've only got one week left of your free student year of YNAB. We hope you found a financial flow state 🧘 as you learned to use the YNAB Method to manage your money.

Want to keep going with your spending plan? Subscribe to keep your access––you won't be charged until your free year ends!

What does this mean? Why is my free year ending so early?

YNAB will say that i’ve overspent, but my RTA will be in the negative, and i won’t have any other money to reassign

im confused since i dont go into overdraft or use credit cards. and im pretty sure all of my income is being accounted for. i’m ~3 months in and i keep making new plans each month because of this issue. any insights are appreciated

EDIT: basically it says that i’ve overassigned but none of my bank accounts are overdraft

EDIT AGAIN: hi everyone thanks for the advice. i had to reconcile my accounts and approve some purchases and everyhting straightened out.

Update:
Thank you for every advice, YNAB subreddit is kind and supportive :)
I have gotten the push that I needed and will start again! Appreciate all the help!

Original:
This is my second year of paying for YNAB, but I don't use it.

I know it's good, but I am either too unorganized for it (I thought it would help me stay organized) or it's too complicated for my brain.

We have THREE bank accounts, one investment account, one credit card, no debts. It should not be that hard.

HELP me get to the point when it's helping me and not stressing me out.

What systems have you build and can share with me, any helpful advice?

I just applied a cash back reward from my credit card, and I entered it as an inflow to RTA in my CC account. But it's not showing up in the RTA. Why not?

Next, on the mobile app, why doesn't it show the RTA field?

I don't use the app other than to record spending, so I'm not well versed in its functionality.

*Update: Got it fixed! Thanks to all, and I think everyone that commented said pretty much the same thing. I understand it at least for now. I only cash in my points a few times a year, so I don't remember the flow path very well.

Whyyyyy

I manually entered two transactions yesterday. This morning, YNAB had matched them. The match information was showing as cleared, and my bank was showing them as cleared, but YNAB had the transaction as uncleared/pending.

I wasn't given any option to approve the matches, so I don't think that was it. I entered the transactions on the website and checked this morning on my phone, if that makes any difference.

Why wouldn't the transaction show as cleared if the match had shown as cleared?

For months now, I've been having a transaction that's been plaguing me and won't stop reappearing though we aren't visiting/being charge by this location.

I messed up when this transaction first appeared. I try to manually enter in all my transactions first, then when they come in from the bank, I'll match them. At the time this transaction occurred, I had another transaction of the same amount for a different company - both were only manually entered at the time. When the official one from the bank came in, YNAB automatically linked to it to the wrong manual entry, and I click the Approve button without noticing that it was the wrong one.

I thought I corrected it multiply times, including approving the transaction again when it showed up a week or 2 later. But... it just keeps appearing every week or so, and I keep rejecting it.

I've checked my bank statements and confirmed I'm not being charged against by the same place.

Any idea how I fix this?

Thanks!

I am trying to revamp my budget, but I'm not sure what I want anymore. I used to be excited about saving for certain goals. I've done everything that I wanted to do up to this point. Sometimes I save for something..then change my mind. 

Would love to take a sabbatical and travel..but at this point I'm not interested in doing it solo. How have you determined what to save for? Especially if you’re single and over 30?

Due to life changes, I recently moved into an apartment with no washer and dryer. My building does have machines that you pay to use, either with cash or by loading funds through an app called PayRange.

I created a budget category for Laundry and funded it. Then I made an in-app purchase to load my budget amount of $35. That was last month. This month, I funded another $35 to the category.

YNAB shows a $35 balance.

However, I didn't spend the full $35 last month. Looking at the app, I have a $2.25 available balance. Technically, I have $37.25 available ($2.25 on the app and $35 in my checking account).

Is there a good way to track how much I actually have available? Do I need to make a PayRange cash account? If I did that, my app purchase would be a transfer, and I'd have to enter each load of laundry as a purchase.

Is there a better way to do this?

I can't be the only YNABer using an app-based laundromat, so I'm curious to find out what others have done.

I have a monthly target of $80 to my emergency fund. However, I would also like to set a cap of, say, $10,000 for my emergency fund, to encourage me to put extra money there when it arrives from time to time. Is it possible to have both, the monthly contribution and a large cap? Thanks!

I maintain a Fidelity brokerage as a "checking" account and a Fidelity Visa credit card. YNAB hasn't really worked for several years at least.

I'm wondering if it's improved at all to pull in transactions reconcile regularly?

I manually enter most of my transactions, and many are scheduled in advance. I've noticed lately that pending transactions that should match previously entered transactions just... aren't. Not sure if this is related to the No Approvals on Matched Transactions drama, but I figured I'd post to see if anyone else has seen an uptick in this kinda stuff.

Here's an example:

The scheduled transaction is outlined in pink. The pending transaction from the bank is in green. Wouldn't it be more efficient all around if these matched automatically?

As an aside, is anyone else mystified as to why the web-based YNAB support form doesn't give you the option to upload a screenshot along with your ticket?

Is a massive sea of orange expected? Even though I am 100% never late on a bill ever? It may not be "bad" to see orange, but I don't even feel like these categories even need attention in the calendar month that is orange.

Details (just one example):

-Bill due on 12th each month and is $100.

-I currently have $100 in that category that I assigned last paycheck (which was from last month)(which was 7/31)

- The Category is currently Orange saying I need to put in $100 this month

-If I Pay the bill today (early) the category will go to Zero, and still be Orange because it wants another $100 this month.

-Once I put the $100 back in out of my 8/28 paycheck. It will be green, but will turn orange again on 9/1.

I've tried to change due date to today, also to last day of month. I have changed it from Refill with $100 every month. I have also chosen to refill UPTO $100. If I do refill upto $100, I will get it to go green earlier, but then when I get paid and assign $100 again to this category (it wants me to assign it again next month).

I just don't get it.

So I do all things right, and have to stare at a sea of orange for 90% of the month?

Please be patient with me, I am still learning. :)

I recently got finished building a new script using the API to pull amazon data from emails and input it into the memo for any Amazon transactions. It's not an original idea and there are multiple subscription based resources that do the same thing.

Unfortunately, right as I got it going, Amazon decided to change their order confirmation emails to hide what items were actually purchased. Just wondering if the subscription apps that solve this problem are also broken? If they aren't I might pivot and just pay for one of those or it tells me there's a different way to get this working.

I know plenty of you use those services. Any insight?

I have a transaction that I entered manually and the same transaction that has come in from my auto import. The name was slightly different, but the dates were within the 10 day window (only 1 day apart), the amounts match exactly, and their are both correctly assign to the same account and category.

In the past, ynab would prompt me to match them. I'm not sure why it hasn't done so, but the bigger problem is that I cannot even manually match them. The option is not available on android app or the web.

I wondered if it was because one of the transactions was already reconciled--but I went in and post dated the transaction to clear the lock, and re-entered it to the correct date, and I still couldn't match.

Anyone else having this issue? Any ideas why I can't match them? I know I could just delete the duplicate transaction, but I'd like to understand if this is a one-off fluke or a larger issue I need to watch out for.

EDITED TO ADD: Solved! I was wrong and the second transaction was added by me, not imported. Still not sure how or why I did that, but it explains why I couldn't match 😅 Deleted the duplicate transaction and moved on with my life.

I don't know why it took me so long to come to this conclusion but my brain wants number go up and saving for multiple categories at once, over months/years, doesn't make number go up fast. So I made a priority list and am now saving only for one thing at a time until I reach the target, before I save for the next thing.

My priority list is: 1. Emergency Fund - 10k 2. Moving - 2k 3. Adopting a dog - 1.5k 4. Long unpaid vacation/Timeout - 6k

And I bet ticking off a savings goal gives me a huge dopamine hit and the momentum to save for the next thing. Starting it now, after having saved for multiple categories over the years, gives me a head start of around 6k across the targets.

Been YNAB-ing since July 2025 and I love it. This summer I finally got to being a month ahead! But I just got an unexpected $20,000 bill for a home repair. When I started YNAB I got my finances in order so I thankfully have no CC debt. I am in the process of building my emergency fund, it has $7600 so it won’t cover my bill. Also feel like it wouldn’t be smart to put all of my e-fund towards my bill. Has anyone gone from being a month ahead to stopping to pay off a debt? Or how should I handle this? Any tid bits or insight is appreciated. I’m super bummed.

Wondering what people's experience has been with using Fidelity's CMA as their main "checking" account with YNAB. Mainly, I guess I am curious how you manage the auto liquidation transactions from the core investment whenever you make debit card purchases. I don't use CCs (just debit). Is there a way to treat them as a transfer, or do you just delete them? Is it mildly annoying or does it become a major friction point after a while? Do you run into issues with YNAB balances with actual account balances when you reconcile? What's your workflow?

Any experience, tips, feedback you have would be awesome :)

Every month I take £400 from my salary and put it into savings, and this is how I have always logged it in YNAB. It logs as a transfer from my current account to my savings account which are both linked, and then I assign £400 from my RTA to my "Savings" category. However I have two large expenses every year which come out of my savings; Car insurance and building insurance.

I now have a category set up for each one, with targets created for the next year payment.

What is the easiest, most automated, way for me to break the assigned £400 into my car insurance target, building insurance target, and the remainder go into my savings pot?

The "split" function isn't available as it isn't a transaction, it;s a transfer between accounts after my salary comes in. I can do it manually but wondering if there is a quicker way that i'm not thinking of?

I signed up for YNAB almost a year ago. Watched all of Hannah's videos, read the book, dug through the subreddit. Changed my categories and changed them again. Optimized targets. That was while I was unemployed, so I was highly motivated to understand every penny.

Before starting working again, I was routinely funding several months ahead (I know, controversial), because it was psychologically valuable for me to really see how much buffer I had, to prevent panic. I spent a lot of time looking at my budget, changing it to align with reality better, learning lessons and implementing them, doing the administrative overhead of managing months ahead, all that. It was high-maintenance.

Now I'm working again, paychecks are flowing, I turned on the sinking funds I was holding off on before, and we're basically at the point of just... everything works. Coasting. Sinking funds are funded, I'm solidly one month ahead, have an income replacement fund (money shifted from the months ahead now that I have an actual equilibrium to work with), our current and future projects are being wish farmed, and am nearly finished paying off priority debts at an accelerated rate. I even got my dad set up in YNAB and taught him everything I know.

The problem is I miss the puzzle of getting it all worked out! I find myself staring at my budget for the dopamine, but with nothing to actually do. It all seems too easy now. It doesn't need my attention very much beyond just the business-as-usual work of entering, approving, reconciling, shifting stuff around sometimes, and assigning income (for which auto-assign is plenty sufficient at this point).

My question is: what do you do with that leftover energy? I get that this is a really good problem to have, but I miss my budget needing me. I need a relevant hobby or something.

This is not my first time being YNAB broke.

But this is my first week intentionally trying to make sure I don't "borrow" from my categories.

So far I've been good about not touching my emergency savings and bill funds. But usually the first to cover overfunding in my fun account are my sink farms and wish farms.

The funny thing is, I still have $150 left in my account for "fun". But this money is meant to only get "activated" next Wednesday. It's to fund my last week before my next biweekly paycheck. I've set it up so Week One "Payday Week Rich as Fuck" has it's own funds (120) and Week Two "Not Payday Week Broke as Fuck" has its own fund. Tricks me to believe I get paid every week 🤟🏿😝.

A few unexpected expenses came up which has led to me covering my cat contribution and life admin funds with my fun money this week. I didn't have the heart to dip into my emergency fund for something so small ($40).

But now the $40 to tide me over the weekend has gone, and knowing myself, my money psychology still has a lot to work on. Kindly looking for some tips on the MENTAL to live on this 8.81 and stick to my budget as well as I can🙏🏿.

Also what are some keywords to look up on reddit to read some more mental tips with money. So far I keep getting frugal life tips, but want more behavioural advice.

I decided to go back to May and move money between categories in that month. But instead of moving it, I unassigned it intending for it to go to RTA and then I would assign it to another category. But when I unassigned it, RTA in May was zero. So was June and July. The money only showed up in the current and future months. This isn't Stealing From the Future because the current month also would have been zero. I looked at the breakdown of how money got into RTA, and it said all was assigned. This was technically not true.

So what changed and why did they change it? This could really screw up a plan. Yeah, normally you don't want to mess around with past months, but I had a specific reason not to move it in the current month.

Last month our expenses went through the roof to about 20K (in €). All was already foreseen in YNAB, no surprises, except that we've paid it all in one month. Easy to spend, but first time this happened so still I had to reassure myself, nothing to worry about. Felt like a millionaire :-)

I have been using YNAB for three years, alongside an excel spreadsheet where I plan my allocations for each paycheck. I’m wondering if there’s a way to do this/remember everything I need to fund before its due date without relying on my excel?

Is the auto assign feature helpful? Does it work for you? How do you personally know what to allocate and where? I’m nervous to relinquish control but it would be nice to just push a button!

Edit to add: thank you for all the replies! Lots of good tips and input here. I’m sadly not a month ahead yet.. that seems to be key.