As anyone who reads this blog knows, I’ve been using YNAB for over a year now, and I love it. I use the spreadsheet version because I’m kind of a spreadsheet geek. I’m always recommending the program to people who are working on getting their finances in order, but I find there’s always one big sticking point.
“I have to live on last month’s income? But I’ve already spent last month’s income!”
For those of you unfamiliar with YNAB, their site explains it in much greater detail, but in short, one of the basic “rules” of YNAB is to live on last month’s income. This means that on March 1, you know exactly how much money you have to spend in March. It prevents living paycheck to paycheck and you no longer have to wait for a paycheck to clear to be able to pay your bills. It’s really a great idea, but as many have pointed out, most people don’t just have an extra month’s worth of expenses sitting around.
The plan is designed so that you can use it while working to build up your buffer of an extra month’s worth of expenses. (Note that you don’t need to save up an entire month’s worth of income, just the money you will need that month. So if you manage to save up enough money to cover all of April’s expenses, then all the paychecks you earn in April will be your spending money for May (a.k.a. last month’s income).) You are encouraged to scrimp and save as much as possible so you can get to that point, and let me tell you, it’s a very freeing feeling.
One friend brought up an interesting question though. He had enough in reserve to pay for about half of his expenses for the month. Could he just pull the other half out of his savings so he could start following the “last month’s income” rule for YNAB the next month. His plan was to then work to repay himself so that he would never notice the loss in savings.
I wasn’t sure how to respond to this. Of course, he could do this. It’s his money after all, and he can do with it whatever he wants. It felt a little bit like robbing Peter to pay Paul though. Personally, I don’t like the idea of pulling from your savings unless you absolutely have to. Sure, he had the right idea in mind by planning to pay himself back. But why start anything at a loss? And how motivated would he really be to save up that much money?
He seemed very eager to start living on last month’s income, so I had a feeling he would be a much more savvy saver if he was working towards that goal rather than just jumping to the front of the line and then having to work to pay himself back. I don’t know about you, but if I have a debt to pay with no penalty, it’s probably not going to be my top priority, especially if it’s a debt to myself.
I’m not sure what he decided to do (and given that I suggested he not pull from his savings, I have a feeling that even if he does, he won’t tell me), but I think that overall, borrowing from your savings isn’t a good idea. It’s one thing to borrow from your vacation fund or your fun fund, but borrowing from basic savings seems like a loan that you’ll struggle to pay back through personal checks.
Megan is a 40-something government employee in the Washington, DC area. She got interested in Personal Finance when she got out of college and realized that her paycheck wasn’t going to go as far as she had hoped. Since starting this blog, she has managed to buy a house and make a solid start on her retirement goals, and hopes to help others do the same. Here is her story:
In 2007, I was a gainfully employed 20-something with no debt but not a lot of knowledge about personal finance. It was a co-worker’s comment about Roth IRAs that sent me to the internet, searching for information. It was then that I realized that I really didn’t know a whole lot about personal finance and that my current financial situation was due a lot to inherent frugal tendencies, generous family members, a fear of debt, and good luck. While that was working for me, clearly I needed a better plan.
While I had no debt, I was also pretty much living paycheck to paycheck and not worrying about going over budget (I say this as if I had a real budget) because I had an emergency fund set aside to cover any overages.
Except that’s not what an emergency fund is for.
So I did a lot of research, read a lot of blogs, and decided that I needed a plan. I needed to budget. I needed to know what I was spending my money on. I needed to prepare for the future.
I decided to create a blog not only to make myself accountable to others but also to share the knowledge that I gained along the way. I’ve learned so much from my fellow bloggers, and I hope that my readers can find something useful in what I have to share as well.
We started living on the previous month’s income after my wife got a good Christmas bonus one year. I simply don’t care when payday is, and that’s a freeing feeling. So many co-workers go into bunker-mode near payday. They start eating Top Ramen and hoping to delay the rent check until Monday, because they’re waiting to be paid. I know how much money is already there for the entire month and that’s a freeing feeling. It’s also a built-in one-month emergency fund!
Although I have never used YNAB, I felt validated by my one-month ahead strategy when I found out he used that as part of his plan. I’ll have to check out YNAB one of these days.