Category: Best Practices
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Reconcile often
If you’re old enough, you might remember having a paper checkbook register, in which you jotted down every check you wrote and kept a running balance. Once a month, when your bank statement came in the mail, you would reconcile your checkbook, which meant making sure that your running balance matched your bank balance, taking…
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Always budget to zero
YNAB is a zero-based budget method. If you follow Rule One: Give Every Dollar a Job, you’ll budget every dollar to zero. It can feel tempting to leave money in Ready to Assign and bask in its green glow. It might give you a feeling of abundance. But it’s not helpful. In fact, it’s counter…
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End-of-the-month YNAB checklist
The end of the month is a special time in YNAB. When the calendar month rolls over, things happen. Luckily, they’re predictable, so you can prepare for them (though it took me quite a few months before I stopped being taken by surprise). Some of the things you’ll observe include: When I overspend in a…
