In YNAB, getting a month ahead is the goal. When you are spending money this month that you earned last month, you have created financial peace of mind. I’m a month ahead in both my business and personal budgets and I can tell you with certainty that it has brought much ease to my financial life.
There are a couple of ways to handle this logistically in YNAB:
- You can have a “Next Month” category where you put any money that comes in after the current month is fully funded. Then at the beginning of next month, you move that money into Ready to Assign and assign it.
- You can move ahead in your plan and assign money right into the categories in the next month.
When I started YNAB, doing the second option felt risky. I had the experience of messing it up when I tried so I hopped right back to having a Next Month category. It works well for me and I love assigning on the first day of the month.
But YNAB has made budgeting into future months much easier and safer feeling with the addition of a few features like “Assigned in Future Months,” which shows up on the bottom of the right sidebar on the desktop version of YNAB.
If you end up with overspending the current month that affects your RTA in the next month, YNAB flags it for you in the right sidebar.
And when you want to to cover unexpected spending in the current month, you can now easily reassign from a future month by clicking on the overspent amount in the Available column and selecting what month you want it to come from.
If you’re a mobile app user, this video from YNAB explains how to assign into the future on the app.
I’m still most comfortable with my “Next Month” category. But I’m glad that YNAB is making it so much easier to go ahead and assign into the future and navigate what happens if you need to take back some of that money.
There are so many benefits to being a month ahead. Regardless of how you get there, being a month ahead is a great place to be!
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