Over time, this helps you to stay attuned to how much is left to spend in each category, and ensure you keep your spending on track in those categories. You won’t be able to overspend on things like birthday gifts or dining out without having to answer for it by taking money away from other things you care about. This forces you to constantly stay aware of your spending and the impact it’s having on your finances. These are the unpredictable things that you never seem to have enough available funds for when you budget the “old” way. This is when you should be considering adding other categories to apply your income to like an emergency fund, a clothes shopping fund, vacation savings, holiday savings, and more. If you have fewer bills than you have income (which you should, or you should be looking at cutting bills), then YNAB forces you to assign those extra funds to something. Applies Extra Income to Important Savings There are a number of reasons the zero sum budgeting approach on YNAB helps you gain more control over your finances. So plan wisely and pay the bills that are due first! How Zero Sum Budgeting on YNAB Is Better Once you’re out of income to budget, you’ll need to wait for your next paycheck or other source of income to assign more funds to other bills. Note: To do this correctly, you’ll need to maintain your bill due dates in another spreadsheet because YNAB does not have a spot to show when that bill usually comes due.

Your goal every time you log in to manage your budget is to select each of the categories where you have immediate upcoming bills and assign enough of your “To be Budgeted” amount to cover those bills.

Ynab budgeting process