THIS MAKES ME SO HAPPY
I cannot afford to max out my 401(k) and I contribute something like $60/month to an IRA. I cannot imagine how much stress I would feel if I had to make those numbers fit; I have a lot of admiration for how tight you work your numbers!
Seriously, though, SO much money, SO SO SO much money. Boyfriend is going to reimburse me some of his share in chunks, but he probably can’t manage a 50-50 split, which is fine because this is my thing that I was pushing for. Credit card says OUCH and is crying in agony.
(Like, so much money that I’m not admitting that I’ve even done this on my journal because I’m going to get facepunches.)
I dunno; I kinda think that a lot of your journal followers would be happy you’re doing this for yourselves 
Okay. I spent alllll the money last month.
October challenge!
Cc and debit card allowed for transit, Christmas gifts, emergencies, baby stuff
Cash only for
food
entertainment
Toiletries
household
Maternity stuff
etc
I will withdraw 300 and put 100 in the backup wallet in the secret place. I will prebook camping, but if I need to charge something for camping, that’s okay too.
Realistically this is more than I normally spend except since July I have spent every thing.
I’m pretty sure @aaronpk has mentioned the way they do credit cards is different from YNAB4 and really weird and awkward if you aren’t a person who holds credit card debt over month to month, IE if you pay it off every month it’s really uncomfortable to use the latest version of YNAB. This has pretty much put me off upgrading (that and the annual fee BUT I’d honestly come around to the idea of the annual fee IF the credit card thing worked well for me.)
Never have I felt so at home as when I’m embraced into the fold of the OMD Hive Mind.
EDIT: I forgot to mention my favourite halloween animal thing in my first post because I didn’t read properly. Um. We don’t do halloween here, but I’m pretty sure my cats sleeping inside a pumpkin or dressed up as a pumpkin would be my favourite thing.
Not quite. I don’t hold a balance on any cards and it works fine for those. I don’t want to turn this into a YNAB support thread, but this problem definitely still exists and is kind of confusing, so I’m starting a new forum thread to document it and we can talk about it there.
Please check out the new forum thread and share this example with your friend!
It pains me to pass up a cat sticker, but I’ve officially reached the “don’t care about money, buying food for health and convenience” point and my grocery bill is the one main area where I actually have to work at sticking to a budget. Solved that by deciding I don’t care right now! But I’ll be cheering everyone on and appreciating the black cats.
@TrisPrior, where are you going on vacation?
Yep, same here, that’s why I skipped that bit.
Trying to work out how I’ll handle the “month” as we get paid fortnightly.
I just joined the forums to participate in this challenge. I’m recently debt-free - end of August, actually - and trying to re-formulate my budget. I want to enjoy myself a bit more than I did while in repayment mode but I also have some big savings goals (emergency fund and trip to Europe).
One of the ways I “treated myself” while in repayment mode was too much fast food. So, my Budgetober goal is to spend no more than $25 on fast food and no more than $75 on eating out. I track my spending in YNAB, so I’ll just keep to that.
Welcome and congratulations on becoming debt free! 
Here for this. I keep falling off the wagon budget-wise and find public posting about my shame to be helpful. The biggest challenge will be food spending - I’m committed to a bunch of different activities through the end of the year that keep me out of the house basically 12 hours a day/5 days a week. I’m still bad at planning ahead with meals and budgeting, so let’s do it to it 
Flexy Spending
Set Bills (no need to track really, unless they disappear or go up without warning)
I am surprised zero about this. I hope they’re mostly fun things!
Please tell me more about this. I have a dozen spider plants.
Details TBD but I’m thinking about making spiders out of pipe cleaners, some sort of fuzzy black ball for the body, and of course googly eyes. This will require a trip to a craft store but I suppose I have like a month to do it.
Maui! I have wanted to go for at least 20 years. An acquaintance goes yearly, and I’ve always wanted to, and been so jealous of her - so I decided, fuck it, I am getting old and shit happens and I don’t want to miss out on a dream, as silly of a dream it might be.
Nice! And I don’t think a dream of going to Hawaii is silly at all.
Welcome and CONGRATS on getting debt-free!
OK, so, I’m curious. How do you all arrive at a number that feels right for non-need spending? Like, how do you all set a number for things like eating out, clothing, fun, shopping?
I’m not sure that I can do a detailed budget this month but it makes sense for me to set some limits around those specific areas of spending. Especially since I have this big vacation bill sitting on my credit card (which has good cash back but a low limit so the card’s half full now, I NEVER let that happen).
Like, for some things (ahem, Halloween) I know I should just do no-spend at ALL, but I am not sure that is realistic and will likely lead to me waving my middle finger at the budget and spending anyway out of rebellion.
Should probably do this–September went fairly well but some extra hobby spend put me a bit over where I’d prefer to be. Since October is where the last of my 2019 charity donations have to happen to guarantee the match at work and the cat needs some dental work done, I’d prefer to keep the rest of the budget categories lower anyway.
I already track through Mint to keep an eye on transactions that pop up on my credit cards (and have my own separate spreadsheet both for reference and for when Mint goes off in the weeds), so the tracking part is easy, at least