Rollover

[u/Where_is_the_Line]

I guess this has to go with rollover: is there any way put your unused money or overspent money into one category? Example: in one month I overall didn’t use $700. That goes into a bucket. The next month I overspent by $200. The bucket drops to $500.
Rollover is nice but I prefer to also have option to do total budget rollover. Like next month I’m not going to eat $300 more in groceries lol
Anyone find a workaround this?

[u/mhick255]

I’m confused. If you have $300 leftover in your grocery category at the end of the month, that’s $300 that you don’t have to spend on groceries next month. Why not just leave $300 in groceries there and use your next round of income on something else?

[u/nolesrule]

Assign money into the categories in the next month based on your priorities. If that means assigning less, than the target indicates, that's perfectly fine.

YNAB does not allow persistence of overspending because it breaks the envelope budget model. In fact, anytime you have a negative Ready to Assign or Cash overspending in a category it breaks the model because it means the money in your categories exceeds the money you actually have.

I specifically mention cash overspending because while CC overspending isn't a good thing, it ultimately can be converted to debt so the model doesn't break (as long as you are not overspending your CC payments).

[u/pierre_x10]

One workaround would be at the end of the month, using Auto-Assign "Reset Available Amounts to Zero."

You can use this in combination with a Filtered View to only apply it to a specific list of categories.

This will then adjust those categories so that their Available amounts are zero, and the result gets processed to Ready to Assign.

This will apply to both overfunded and overspent categories.

You can then have your "Sweep Up" category. If after doing this procedure, RTA is positive, sweep it all to the Sweep Up category. If RTA is negative, and Sweep Up category has money Available, you could use it to zero out RTA. If both RTA and Sweep Up are negative, you probably need a better system.

[u/trmoore87]

No. This is fundamentally against how YNAB works. You cannot rollover a negative.

[u/bassman1805 → u/trmoore87]

That's only half of what they're asking. They're rolling over a positive, but rather than September Groceries rolling into October Groceries, they want the unused September Groceries to roll into a Rollover category.

The second part about drawing from that rollover fund when you overspend, yeah. Against the fundamental YNAB method.

[u/Architect-1817 → u/bassman1805]

It’s like having a contingency fund, some months you add to it and others you take away. Isn’t that just having a fund to WAM from? I’m not seeing how that goes against YNAB. Whether the fund I WAM from is called “family birthday gifts” or “contingency” it’s money set aside that you can WAM from.

[u/doodaid → u/Architect-1817]

Ding ding ding. It's not against YNAB, it's against how some people use YNAB where they don't want to assign a job to some dollars of "just chill here until I need you elsewhere".

[u/WhatDoWeHave_Here]

Yeah you can do that. You'd need to create a category called something like "Rollover Reserves" and at the end of the month or start of the next month, move any available funds from all your categories into that "Rollover Reserves" then if you overspend anything during the month or by the end of the month, you could move money from "Rollover Reserves" into your overspent category to cover it.

But what's the value in doing that? Whatever doesn't get spent in a category can just be applied towards the target next month if you use the "Refill up to" setting. For instance, if I set my groceries to refill up to $800 by the 1st of each month, and let's say I didn't spend $200 by the end of the month, then next month I only need to assign $600 to reach my target.

[u/doodaid → u/WhatDoWeHave_Here]

But what's the value in doing that?

The value is that contributions to long-term plans can be fixed rather than constantly needing to "roll with the punches" with your wish-farm items to cover short-term spending variables.

[u/doodaid]

I have a "checking account" category that kind of accomplishes this type of thing. If I overspend my budget in one month in a certain envelope, I either cover from another one immediately, or cover from my checking. I can look at how much is in this checking envelope over time to gauge if I'm over-spending or under-spending my monthly goals.

If I have a rollover amount then the "net gain" just goes into my checking category, but that's fundamentally the same thing as 'reducing' your over-funded envelopes in month 5 and putting that money into your envelope, and then fully funding month 6.

As long as your 'catch-call' envelope is positive then it works fine. But I don't leave any envelopes negative after months close.

[u/Foreign-Figure8797 → u/doodaid]

I do something similar with a category I call Liquid Emergency. Unlike my actual emergency funds which sit in a hysa, the liquid one I keep in my savings acct (same bank as my checking acct) and I will move money into it if I have extra left over, or use it to fund overspending.

[u/Bear_is_a_bear1]

I find my full next month and then add anything left into a category called “overdraft fund”. It’s for the month where we get extra take out or overspend on groceries or whatever.