#111 - What's Your YNAB Routine?
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
I'm Ben and I'm Ernie and you're listening to Budget Nerds. You are not alone. No, you are not. All right, Ernie. Today, we're talking about routines. Why not routines? We're going to talk about how you maintain, how you... Well, I mean, I say maintain. For some people, it's like entertainment for them, right? And they go into YNAP and they do things. I mean, it's like that for me, right? But there's things you got to do and you got to do it on a regular basis. So we're talking about what it looks like to maintain YNAB and what kind of cadence you should be working with.
Yeah, especially for new YNABers, you set it all up and it's like, okay, what's next? How do I actually use this tool? So we want to walk through all the various routines that you can have daily, weekly, payday, monthly, yearly. Now, you might not have all of those cadences, but there's going to be a number of them and we're going to walk through everything. So what Ben does, what I do, and what we know other YNABers do as well. Yeah, I love it.
What is the purpose of establishing a YNAB routine?
I saw a thread on Reddit the other day, where somebody was like, they just started YNAB like a month ago or so. And they were like, it's kind of how can I spice this up? Like, it's starting to feel kind of boring. And people in the thread were like, yeah, like, that's, that's actually a good thing. Like, you're going into kind of maintenance mode, like, you've kind of done the work of setting up and thinking about it. And now you just kind of got to like, keep it going. And Like, like actually celebrate that, you know, but then there were some ideas of how to, you know, how to spice it up.
That is a good way to frame it because if your money is boring, you've gotten to a place where you're, you're not thinking a whole lot about it. I mean, it's almost on autopilot, but I think it's more just you're aware, you're super intentional, and it's just kind of humming along in the background, and then you get to go out and live your actual life.
Yeah, yeah. I think it's also... It's good to think about money. Like that's what we're all about. We're thinking about our spending. We're planning it. We're being intentional with it. But I don't want it to be like a constant buzz in my mind where I'm like always second guessing my spending or anything like that. I want to just think about it all at once at a certain time of the day or the week or the month. And then go, like you said, go live your life. So I think that's one reason why having a routine is a good idea because otherwise if you don't have like a time where you sit down and you, you handle it, it might just kind of be buzzing in the back of your head all the time. But if you have like a regular cadence that you're coming back to it, your brain can be like, Oh, I'm going to like, if I, if I need to deal with the money thing, I can, I'm going to deal with it tomorrow morning when I do my daily routine, you know?
So you don't have to like think about it all the time. You know, you're going to handle it when it's time to handle it. Right.
Yeah.
The awareness piece is the main reason that I have my YNAB routines is because I know when I'm in there and it's just a little bit of time and we'll get into this. It's not a whole lot of time that I'm spending in YNAB, but just that small amount of time increases my awareness. Hmm. And then when my awareness has increased, I make better spending decisions because I'm just armed with better information. And the better decisions that I can make, then it leads to more intentionality with my dollars. And so, I mean, that's a really easy way for me, just a simple routine to gain awareness and intentionality. I love it. All right, let's get into the daily routine. Do you want to go first?
What do you do every day in YNAB?
Every day. So I'm a, I'm a morning person and coffee comes first. Usually it's me sitting in a chair, looking out the window. Are you everyone else?
Everybody else. Yeah.
Yes. I'm the first one up. It's the me time. And I'm listening to a podcast, enjoying coffee. Okay. And then after the coffee, that's when I start work, open up wine, uh, open up my computer.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–1:16
2
What is the purpose of establishing a YNAB routine?
1:16–12:33
3
What should I do every day in YNAB to stay on top of spending?
12:33–21:30
4
How do I reconcile accounts and pending transactions each morning?
21:30–1:02:14
5
What weekly cash reconciliation routines can simplify budgeting?
1:02:14–1:02:24
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from Budget Nerds
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