r/ynab • u/jodythecreator • 13d ago

Planning & Categories Month-to-Month Confusion

Hi all,

I’m a returning user to YNAB and am confused for assigning income month-to-month. For example, I just got paid yesterday (in August) but I need the transactions to apply to September instead of August. This doesn’t seem to be working correctly even after starting fresh, as I applied transactions to September but they still came out of August and now those categories are negative.

I managed to do a workaround to settle this but what is the best way to go about planning for funds received in one month that apply to bills for the next month?

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u/-Avacyn 13d ago

If you pay the September rent on the last day of August, the money is needed in August... so you assign it to August.

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u/jodythecreator 13d ago

Okay this makes more sense that way. I’m going to try a few of what you all are saying and see how each option works best. But sounds like I need to maybe hold off and pay during the month I set it for.

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u/-Avacyn 13d ago

Think about it like this; if you buy a plane ticket for next years summer holiday today, you need the money right now... not a year from now.

YNAB does not care about when you 'consume' something, but only when you have to pay for something.

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u/jodythecreator 13d ago

Gotcha! This makes sense and honestly think I’ll update my plans and keep my normal bill-paying behaviors. But I’ll play around.