Update: I did add my truck to YNAB last night. It automatically is an off-budget account, *edit* I previously posted that it did not effect my net worth, turns out it does. More on this later.* I do believe you can have it effect your budget as a whole.. but I certainly didn’t want to watch my beautifully inclining net worth bar take a drastic plummet!!! *edit* My net worth did take a drastic plummet. Good news- I can watch it crawl up now*
I just finished budgeting a bit for March. My income was from my self employment so I couldn’t budget for the whole month. That will happen on March 10th.
This morning consisted of entering transactions, I reconciled all accounts except one credit card (the one waiting for the refund), went through things over and over and over, and even paid two bills! One of them was my old credit card that now has a balance of only $185.41 : D
Previously I had treated my self employment income as… fun money. That could explain why I always felt like I was making money and losing it just as fast. This income is either cash or cheque. While I do keep track of the amounts in my business file I often didn’t have a record of it personally, especially if it was cash or a cheque I cashed instead of deposited.
This past year will be the last year I do my year end and think “Wow, business did pretty good, where on earth did it go??”.
An old habit/thought process surfaced again today out of no where. I was at the till paying for some groceries with my debit card. As I inserted the chip I had the all-too-familiar feeling of ‘Uh, what if it’s declined’. WHAT?? Declined? Not only had I just deposited money but I also had money LEFT OVER from February (first time in my life). There was absolutely no reason to have that feeling. Other than I have repeatedly had that feeling for many many years. I was mad, sad, happy, and upset all at the same time. Happy because I quickly realized it was an unwarranted feeling, the rest because I had let myself be so terrible with money for so long that it is literally engrained in my thoughts. Sheesh!!!!
Enough of that old depressing stuff…
New Habits, New Goals.
I have a large number of savings categories. They are as follows:
Transportation– Insurance (paid 3x/yr, saving everything month), Registration (paid once a year), Vehicle Repairs.
Savings– One Month Buffer, current goal of $2000 (YNAB Rule Four), Emergency Fund, current goal of $6000. These numbers are based on what I used to think I made each month. I actually make more so these numbers may change. There is no set time frame or X number amount per month yet. Once I’m in the groove a little more I will come back to these.
Current balances are $254.16 for my Buffer and $103.28 for my Emerg Fund. For now I am content with watching them grow slowly. I continually tell myself that in the event of an emergency I can already cover something such as vet bills, car repairs. It would require taking from other accounts but YNAB Rule Three is to Roll with the Punches. So long as credit cards aren’t being maxxed again.
Special Occasions– Christmas, Birthdays, and Weekend Get-a-ways, because sometimes you just NEED to. These balances are at zero for now. I have no idea what I want to spend on Christmas as I have always gone through Christmas willy-nilly and only keeping the receipts of something that may need to be returned or exchanged. Left overs from other categories will most likely migrate to this category.
Vacation– Jasper Weekends. Was at $700+ but currently at zero as we just got back from the mountains 4 days ago. Now remember… I have only been budgeting for one month. I honestly did not feel poor or restricted with that money set aside. Mind you I also haven’t been near a shoe sale or book sale in the past month. This category is waiting for the credit card refund. I am thankful that I did budget for this trip. Upon check-in I realized I had left the $200 gift certificate at home. In the past that would’ve caused mass panic (“how on earth am I going to pay for this NOW?”).
Medicine Lake, Jasper National Park
Worth every penny!!!
Also in Vacation Savings is a sub-category for a one week trip to Calgary/Canmore/Banff. It currently has $100. This trip is in April so I need to get on it!!
A new category I started last night is ‘Loans Received’. I am unsure yet whether this will work the way that I intend it to. I started it because in the past month I have had several small amounts of money come in that I had previously lent out, or cash put towards a joint meal I put on my debit card.
When I went through the last months worth of income things weren’t quite adding up and it was because of these small $10-20 transactions. I will keep you updated as to how this plays out.
Let the adventure continue…