We try to keep a basic budget but each month we're missing about 10,000 shekels and during months like summer and yom tov it's an extra 5,000-10,000 shekels. What should we do when we keep going under and the income is just not enough?

This is exactly what YNAB helps with. Every single client I have, whether in America or Israel, or other, first we need to have a functional attempt at YNAB. Then once we are using YNAB, we can focus on increasing income or reducing expenses from an extremely informed perspective. Happy to help over DMs also. We also have YNAB coaches to help.

ideally that would be good but we don't have enough to put away for the higher months. I'm freelancing and it's not making enough money.

First you need a proper budget so you know how much money you need to be making as a family. Once you have that monthly number, you can take that number and from an informed perspective, shop around at potential job opportunities or career shifts. It should be your current approach doesn’t aline with the expenses your family needs. So you either need to lower your goals/expectations/spending, or increase income. But first we need the information and intentionality the comes with building a plan.

What's different about YNAB than doing it in excel sheets or following a book?

Many reasons I've written about but in short, being able to move money around between your budget categories to cover expenses BEFORE you make the purchase. A budget isn't a report of what happened, nor projections of what will happen. A budget must be a tool to help you actively DURING the decision making process.

but I don't have a smartphone to do it on the fly

Can you do it before you go to the store though? Maybe say okay I have 200 shekels left for groceries, and I know that if I spend more I need to pull it from the kids fun category.

but I'm not going to just buy 200 shekels or exactly 500 shekels of food.

What do you mean

I'm going to buy the food we need not how much money I have to spend on it.

Bingo! 👍 That is the mindset shift that one goes through when they start budgeting. We need to spend only what we have.

And what about the fact that I have let's say 18000 to spend and I spend 28,000 how do I cover that until I have things more straightened out?

You only have 2 options. Cut expenses or make more money. No magic answer here, but I've found people just start spending a lot less when they start active budgeting.

ok thanks!

Like my wife the other day said "I really want to buy this but I know it takes away from the kids fun money, so I no longer wanted it"

ok thanks!

+1 on @mysterious-tomato-10057’s perspective. Of course there’s no app in the world that will change the basic equation of your money needing to cover your expenses, whether that involves an additional or alternative source of income, taking on debt, or lowering expenses. YNAB is great for understanding how to prioritize, and especially for mid-month decisions. With a typical forecasting or spreadsheet style budget, with many people it’s just a question of do I have the money or not? Well, I have to purchase these items so I can’t follow my strict budget, therefore the budget isn’t actually guiding you at all. Ynab/ the every dollar having a job approach forces you to say “I don’t have enough money in the budget for grocery shopping now. Should I pull that money out of the kids activities, the credit card bill that’s not due yet, or can I make do without the spend?

Often I find myself thinking, can I wait a few days/couple of weeks with this purchase, or does it have to be now?

In Israel, I lived a much more cash-based life. In Toronto, I can't imagine using cash envelopes, but if you're using a lot of cash for things like groceries, that could help perhaps. You just treat cash as an account in YNAB. You can bring a physical envelope with shekels to the store with you if you want. If you don't have enough money, you either have to go back to the store after reallocating funds or else preemptively move money from another envelope. I generally see cash envelopes and YNAB as mutually exclusive, but it could be an interesting option

overdraft.

Thankfully, have not had to use it. You’re really getting extensions of 10,000 shekels via overdraft, and it’s not costing you more than just credit card debt or short term loan?

correct. costs a few shekels interest at the end of the month.

Gotcha. Strongly recommend consulting with a financial planner, @mysterious-tomato-10057 can set a meeting ip if I understand correctly. Either you are consistently earning enough to cover your budget, but just constantly borrowing a bit from future months, or your debt is growing larger by the month. If it’s a, it might be very realistic to gradually make some cuts or put away some side income to shift over. If it’s B, You have more of a challenge on your hands. Either way, it’s much easier said than done, but a financial advisor can help you make the gradual shift to being one month ahead - spending money this month that was earned last month so you’re not quite paycheck to paycheck, And eventually moving onto having an emergency fund , savings etc.

Happy to help!