Is there a way in YNAB to "amortize" (I think that's the correct word here) an expense? E.g. I have a monthly budget for car repairs but the expense was larger than the amount budgeted. Is there a way for every future month to recognize that any money allocated to that budget item should go towards that initial expense until it's fully covered?

No and I believe that is extremely intentional. Since you did pay for the expense somehow, you need to tell YNAB how you did it rather than punishing categories. doing it the YNAB way better represents the reality of what happened.

I understand that YNAB wants me to allocate the money to that budget item right away since money was actually spent in that category. Is there still a way to manually do it? If next month after I allocate an amount to that budget item and then go back to the previous month and de-allocate from that month, would it pull from the future month?

The manual way would be to slowly add the money back into the categories you stole from.

So just not assign anything the next month? Yes I guess that would work the same way. Thanks

👍

There’s a few ways to look at this. This just taught you that you either just started and didn’t put enough money into auto or that you need to add more money into it. This same thing happened to me when I first signed up for YNAB. I put $150 into auto for two months and then my windshield cracked and needed to spend $500. I took it from other categories. Moving forward you should definitely be putting money into auto. You said don’t put money into auto, but then you run the risk of being in this same position. I usually start skimming from my auto category when I reach around $1000. By skimming I mean using it for something else if I need to. Whatever category you took it from, you should also fill that back up next month. Unless you need it this month, then it’s obvious what to do. Make sense?

his point is that same money, which used to go into auto, should now go into the categories he stole from so that he will be able to fill those back to where they were before.

Ya the assumption is that I'm saving up enough each month to cover these random expenses, it's just that I didn't save enough up until this point but will save enough in X number of months in the future. The example is this case is buying a new car battery - I didn't specifically expect to need a new battery now but I now know I won't need to pay for one for at least 4 years. You are correct, though, in saying that if I see that I'm not saving enough each month to cover these random expenses, then, yes, I would have to increase the monthly savings.

@mysterious-tomato-10057 I understand what he’s saying but I don’t think you can just swap it. I believe you should add to auto AND add more money to those categories you stole from. @broad-australia-98095 had said to just not put money into auto while filling back in those categories. I definitely think that is not the move.

@thousands-sunset-8939 where are you going to get the extra money from? My answer works for someone who needs to ammortize that doesn’t have the extra money to pull from (most people)

It just sounds like a vicious cycle. If you fill back into those categories but you need new tires then you are back in the same boat. If you don’t fill in those categories then you’ll miss those targets as well. In my experience you have to decide which one is more important. Maybe there’s another place you can take money from that you can worry about later.

I guess it all depends how much money you have to move around

For example, it may be that month or two you don’t get to eat out, but new clothes, or anything of that nature.

Fun fact, YNAB 4 used to allow carrying over a negative category balance into future months, which was convenient if you were getting reimbursed for something but otherwise welcomes opportunity for the budget to fall apart. But today I'd say, fund the auto repair category because it happened already. It's water under the bridge. Going forward, if you have Targets set up for the other categories where the Auto Repair money came from, YNAB will automatically adjust how much you need to contribute to those categories in the future months to still reach your goals.

@acceptable-angle-23240 I contacted them when i first started ynab that there was a bug that I couldn’t carry over a negative until I learned that that wasn’t the YNAB way

Wait why do you have money in ready to assign? Give it a job and make it into a savings category.

@thousands-sunset-8939 beat me to it 😉

lol good point, it's not like a ton of money is "ready to assign". I may either just be too lazy to have put it towards the next month's budget or else keep a little bit around there for reimbursement type purchases, or maybe I underbudgeted something and will adjust the budget for the future but for now need to assign more money to the budget. It's sometimes simpler to keep some money "ready to assign" rather than trying to move money between budget items.

It’s all psychological really. But there are ‘rules’ in YNAB that help you be more successful. One of them is assigning every dollar a job. But it’s psychological really

Ya I definitely like their approach, it's helped me tremendously structure my finances