Been using YNAB for four years and just realised my Age of Money has reached 375 days.

We’re now looking to buy our first house, so a big chunk of the money sitting there is finally going to disappear.

Part of me is going to hate watching that number collapse, but I suppose that’s literally what the money was there for.

YNAB has genuinely changed our life and how we manage money. I used to think mostly in terms of “how much money do I have?” Now I think much more in terms of “what does this money need to do?”

We’ve basically been YNAB poor for the last four years. My wife sometimes hates it because the bank balance can look healthy while I’m saying “we can’t afford that” 😂 It drives her mad but she also appreciate's how much we have been able to do by staying disciplined.

We’ve got money sitting there for the house deposit, emergency fund, childcare, holidays, annual bills and all the other random stuff that used to feel like it came out of nowhere.

So this is mostly just a slightly geeky post to mark the occasion, because 375 days might be the highest this number ever gets.

Quick update for Canadians using YNAB and other budgeting apps:

The Consumer-Driven Banking Act has been law since March 26, 2026. The proposed regulations that will actually make the system work were published in the Canada Gazette on June 27, 2026. The 60-day public consultation period closed on August 26, 2026.

We are now waiting for the Department of Finance to review the feedback and publish the final regulations. Once finalized, the framework is expected to come into force in a staggered way (starting with accreditation), with the full set of rules intended to be in place within about one year of final publication.

What this means for users:
Secure, consent-based data sharing through official APIs (no more sharing banking passwords)

More reliable automatic imports into apps like YNAB

Stronger protections against fraud compared to current screen-scraping methods

Phase 1 (Read Access) is still expected sometime after the regulations are finalized.

Phase 2 (Write Access) remains targeted for mid-2027.

No firm operational launch date has been announced yet. Progress continues under Bank of Canada oversight, but we’re still in the “waiting for final rules” stage.

I’ll post again when the final regulations are published or a clearer timeline appears.

Anyone else get curious after the latest Budget Nerds episode talking with Jesse about the new book and discover a slow/soft rollout of an updated Method? The “Give Every Dollar a Job” and 5 questions have been subtly changed in some places on the website to the one question: “What’s Your Money For?” and the 5 areas (For Now, For Later, For Ease, For You, For Change).

Not upset, just was surprised by the subtlety of the rollout.

Hi, I am in Canada and have been using YNAB with BMO for months with no issues. It was actually so much better than when I was with RBC (had to reconnect every day). It was staying connected for weeks and was synching pretty regularly. A week or two ago, it asked me to reconnect. But after receiving the validation code, it just loads for like 15 minutes, until it says

"Connection maintenance

We are upgrading this connection. Please try again later"

I contacted support who switched me from MX to Plaid, but still no luck. They switched me back to MX, still didn't work. In the end they said that the issue in on the provider side but YNAB can't do anything and they have no timeline as to when it will be fixed.

I've been trying again every day on web and mobile but it's always the same. The reason I chose YNAB is for the bank connection and automatic sync, I really hate having to do it manually.

Is anyone also experiencing this with BMO in Canada?

I'm trying to understand the app. I've connected to my bank, and I've set my budgets. Now, my salary has come in, and I'm trying to understand what I do with my salary. Do I assign it somewhere? Don't I assign anything of my income and just assign my expenditures? I'm so confused right now.

I've not assigned anything right now, but it just says there is an activity of 200, 200 available and nothing assigned. Do I assign it negatively to have 0 available?

We’ve been using YNAB for a year and a half now and I still can’t get my head around the “total spending” in the reflect tab.

Why does it include certain inflows in this total? Is there a way to make it show only what you’ve spent without fluffing the numbers with inflows?

My wife and I in the process of buying a house and set to close in a couple weeks. What do I need to do to avoid reports showing a massive drop in net worth?

I‘ve seen the advice to make a tracked account with the value of the house to track against the mortgage. Is the down payment a transfer between my bank account and the tracked account?

How did you handle your home purchase?

This is my first month that I change my CC to a checking account. I can't figure out how to pay it off in YNAB. When I move money to it it just adds up. I was told this is the old way YNAB worked so I said I would try it. Some one please walk me thru this. Thanks.

So that account needed a balance my budget for the month right? I would have been drawing from it. Is my thinking correct?

I ran into a problem with my YNAB accounts and went to access the "question mark" for help, but found it isn't there! Has anyone else noticed that the help option is missing? Perhaps I am overlooking something, or there is a different way to get help. Would appreciate any suggestions! PS: I am using the desktop version on my MacBook Air laptop.

New customers can get a free month of YNAB when subscribing with a referral link–and so does the person whose link they used. Current users can find their personal referral link here: https://app.ynab.com/referral_program

Thread Rules: The link should not include your name (remove &sponsor_name=NAME from the URL). You may share your link once each month. Do not post referrals for other apps or services.

And I thought in-app ads selling the book were bad.

We did some light overspending at the end of August and so I’m curious what other people do in terms of assigning money at the end of a month.

When my husband got paid on Friday (the 28th) everything was fully funded for August, and so my instinct is to start funding September (we’re about 2 weeks/one paycheck ahead at the moment). Mentally, I’m operating as if that paycheck is for September spending. So when, for example, we’re buying groceries on Aug 29th for the first week September, my brain is perceiving that as a September budget item that just so happened to occur in August. Shame me how you will, but I think around pay periods and not calendar months.

For these times, I end up pulling from my assigned September funding, which screws with how much I want in each category. So you guys end up pulling from the future month, or leave everything in RTA, use the pot to cover any overspending, and then assign funds in earnest at the start of a new month?

I really want this to work but it's breaking my brain. I'm used to Rocket Money where it just follows my spending and gives me data about it.

For starters, I have a lot of accounts. For my main bank, I have 5 accounts with separate debit cards for separate things, (ie bills, emergency, regular spending, subscriptions). Then I have a couple SoFi accounts and I also linked my Venmo too. I'm constantly transferring funds to different accounts and it's starting to get really confusing in YNAB. Also, I have trouble going in right when I get paid to assign.

What's the best approach to this? Anyone have good youtube links or resources for beginners?

I do manual inputs. All my pending transactions are from Friday-Sunday. I know banks take a while to clear things. But this is getting in the way of me reconciling my month ☺️

I'm looking for suggestions on how to handle "borrowing" from one category to another. Right now, I do it with notes in the borrowed-from category, but it seems there should be a better way. For example, I have a new car category that gets tapped a lot when things are underfunded. The intent is to "pay back" the car as funds become available. So how do I keep track of how much is "owed" to the new car category? I thought maybe using a loan category might work, but I couldn't figure it out. Thanks.

I used to be really bad with money before YNAB and part of it was that I would tell myself “I’ll spend now, deal with it later”. That changed with YNAB. However, lately I’ve found myself in the same vicious circle of struggling because I adopted that thought of “I’ll deal with it later”. How do you re wire your way of thinking for that? and does YNAB help you deal with it? Thank you

Curious if anyone else is having issues with their direct import or random technical difficulties. I noticed late Friday night by checking account wasn’t syncing and then Saturday I had an “Update Bank Connection” icon. I tried multiple times over the weekend to update with no luck. Tried again multiple times today and it seems that maybe both Plaid and my bank won’t allow the sync to YNAB. I’ve been using this same account for over a year with no problems on YNAB. I reached out to support and haven’t heard anything back all day and now I see their support bot says they’re having technical difficulties. I checked the status page on the website and looks like everything is operational. Wondering if anyone has any ideas.

It’s payday!!! I’ve got stuff to assign!!

I frequently create small targeted goal envelopes (e.g. for individual trips). I save money to those envelopes at different rates. For example, I might be slowly saving for a trip to Japan, but I’ll have an envelope with a smaller target for a weekend road trip.

When I actually spend the money (e.g. when I go on the trip), I record the spending to that category. When all spending is done, I delete the envelope and move it to a general, long-term category (like Travel).

But whenever I do this, I have weird negative balances in Ready to Assign, sometimes the goal category will be suddenly overspent, and it just generally looks like I’ve made YNAB unhappy.

My first question is: why is this happening?

My second is: how do I fix it? Should I spend the money directly from the Travel category and move money from the trip-specific categories as I go, then delete the category in the end?

I'm new to this app and to the concept of envelope budgeting. I am having a hard time coming up with a future looking budget without also taking into account future income, because the amount of money currently in my bank account is higher than what my monthly income will be. If I give every dollar a job, I'd blow past what my future income would allow

Should I be making my budget based on what I know my bi-weekly paychecks can support instead?

I have a Target Circle Card I use to get the 5%, but whenever my husband goes to Target he uses my phone number to get coupons but uses his own CC to pay since he doesn’t have my card. YNAB seems to be treating his CC expenditures as imports onto my Circle Card and wildly overstating my actual Circle balance. I have the Circle card listed as a CC but it is unlinked within YNAB itself. I guess my question is what do I….do about it? Delete the transactions? Eliminate it as a CC and make it just a regular budget category? TIA

Bought some shoes, returned to them. Entered the return transaction when I shipped them, just like I would enter a spending transaction when I spent it.

They got delayed in shipment, and I’m sure the refund won’t clear until September.

I think this is going to get things all out of whack. Or will it just sync with uncleared transactions? My category for clothing now shows $0 available (what I want), will it show $151 available when this clears next month (I don’t want that, the money has already been moved elsewhere).

What do I need to do to keep things straight?

Thanks!

Pretty sure this can’t be done, but I quite like the Income Vs Spending overview as a quick view of how things are going.

My problem is this month I transferred a bunch of money into an investment account that I have as a tracking account and now the overview thinks I “spent” a whole load of extra money this month. I know I technically spent it, but I don’t want it included as I still have the money.

I use a “Transfer to investments” category so filtering this out from most reports is easy - just not this one in the mobile app.

Okay yeah, l am a fanboy and won't deny it.

The YNAB method has empowered my spouse and me to weather broken cars, several years of cancer treatment (cancer free now!), many pet bills, and loads of home repairs - all debt free for almost a decade. We even have a kinda-funded EF.

Earlier this year we bought our first new-to-us “YNAB car”; all cash and no guilt! I was recently laid off and needed a car to commute to the new job.

It was a surprisingly peaceful feeling, spending that much money, because we paid ourselves a car payment for many years before that.

So, we decided on these fun license plates to celebrate the YNAB method working! The old truck needed one too.

I am sure my brother will see this on here, so hi Brother.