On months like this—where the last week spills a few days into the next month—how do people handle weekly grocery spending in YNAB when the grocery category is basically used up already? I know that there is money for this spending, but it's just not in the bucket

that sounds like you need to change the target to be a certain amount by the end of the month to be ready for the next month already? are you asking lehatchila or bedieved? if you are already in the situation i would not do anything i knew the money was about to come in and just go negative or borrow from another category

is going negative any different than changing the transaction date to be Jan. 1?

Couldn’t you use the Target to be weekly by the first day of the week, so you will always have your target by Sunday?

I could, but I often do bulk grocery shopping, which will definitely overflow a weekly amount.

> is going negative any different than changing the transaction date to be Jan. 1? I think 🤷 changing the transaction date is cleaner, but i would not recommend that to a non-advanced user.

Let’s break this down simply. Imagine you have a jar for groceries. Each month, you put money in the jar. You spend from it each week. Sometimes, the last week of the month isn’t finished when the new month starts. Maybe there are a few days left in that week, but your grocery jar for the old month is empty. But you still have money in other jars (categories). Here’s what you can do: • Move money from another jar to your grocery jar. This way, you have money to buy food for those last few days. • In YNAB, you can move money between categories anytime. If your grocery category is used up but you have money in another category, just shift it over. • Always make sure your most important needs (like food) are covered first. Action steps: 1. Check if your grocery category is empty. 2. Look for extra money in other categories. 3. Move some of that money into groceries so you can buy what you need. 4. Next time, think about making a special category for weeks that cross into a new month, or use time-related categories to help keep track. Remember: It’s okay to move money around to cover what matters most!

In general, a helpful trick for grocery shopping is figure out approximately what you spend in a year on groceries and divide it by 12. Then put that money in the bucket each month (meaning some months you will spend less than you are putting into the bucket). Then, at the beginning of the month when making your budget for the month, check how the calendar falls (for example, if you normally spend $100 on groceries on Thursday, then check how many Thursday's are in the month and budget accordingly). This method also helps if you have extra, large grocery costs some months (such as stocking up on a meat sale or renewing a Costco membership). Then, you add in a couple hundred $ extra at the beginning of the month into your budget, and since you are putting away monthly, IYH there should be money in the account to cover it.