#134 - Ben's Category Breakdown (2026 Edition)

Ernie floated a sports reference to Ben in a recent discussion, the concept of an NFL team patching together the holes in their lineup with trades and free agents versus completely rebuilding it from the ground up. Patching of course is the quick fix -- it gets you results now, so you can field a team and compete this season. The results, however, may not be what you want, and often the patched-together team doesn't hold up over a long season. Rebuilding is the long road. It usually means suffering now so that you can have a strong, cohesive unit to play with next season (or sometimes several seasons in the future). A team built from the ground up also has depth. When things go wrong, and injuries happen, that team has seasoned players who can fill the gaps and still act as a cohesive unit.   Well, it turns out the same is true for our money habits. Ben and Ernie run through a list of common habits that are trying to patch the holes in your spending plan, and compare them to sustainable building habits, which lead to a strong, flexible plan that aligns with your life.     Follow Budget Nerds on YouTube Budget Nerds Livestreams: https://www.youtube.com/@YNABofficial/streams Budget Nerds Episodes: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuIUGmbCDklkDCDm-cQqv2g   Share your YNAB win with Ben and Ernie! [email protected]

Nearly five years ago, in a very early episode of Budget Nerds (before the podcast feed!), Ben and Ernie discussed their top three favorite things to do in YNAB. Today they are revisiting that concept to share what still lights them up about using YNAB. Some things include slick new YNAB features such as focused views, others hearken back to the simple beauty of giving every dollar a job and reconciling accounts.   Ben's current top 3: Reconciling accounts -- in typical nerdy fashion, Ben reconciles manually before his pending transactions clear with the bank, then compares the balances afterward to ensure they match. It's the harder, but (for him) more satisfying way. Moving money out of overfunded accounts with "fill up to" targets. Ben uses a lot of targets that require him to fill up to a target amount in the category, but not all of those dollars are used every month. By using the overfunded focused view, he can pull those unneeded dollars out of the overfunded categories and voila! It's like finding $20 in the pocket of your jeans. YNAB as a system of record. Ben's librarian comes through here. YNAB isn't just a tool for managing your money, it's also a useful database of your financial data. You can easily query it to find transactions for years past based on the payee or even notes you left in the memo field. This comes in handy when doing taxes, meeting with your accountant, or trying to figure out what restaurant you ate at and loved on vacation four years ago.   Ernie's top 3: Cost to be me -- this is a newer feature that adds up your targets and shows you what it takes to fund your current lifestyle. You can compare this against your expected income and see how much margin you will have any given month. Assinging into future months using the auto-assign feature. Ernie's addicted to seeing those pie charts for future months fill up! Available amounts. This has been a feature of YNAB forever, but it still brings Ernie joy. Scrolling through his categories and seeing the available amounts brought Ernie a sense of peace and comfort when he first started using YNAB, and it still does today. These are real dollars, not hypothetical future dollars, and they are there to work for you.   Follow Budget Nerds on YouTube Budget Nerds Livestreams: https://www.youtube.com/@YNABofficial/streams Budget Nerds Episodes: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuIUGmbCDklkDCDm-cQqv2g   Share your YNAB win with Ben and Ernie! [email protected]

It's not hard to see that many people struggle to manage their money. Most people are, well, frankly bad with money. That is not a value judgment, or a comment about their character or willpower, or anything like that! Managing money is a skill, and skills can be improved with practice and a little guidance. In today's episode Ben and Ernie present five signs indicating you are bad with money, and offer some practical advice to how to get better. (Hint: it involves giving every dollar a job).   The five signs: You worry about everyday spending Every inconvenience is an emergency You live paycheck to paycheck You don't set aside money for yourself You don't change your plan   If any (or all) of these signs describe you, there is hope! Ben and Ernie used to feel like this too, and through the practice of giving their dollars jobs and thinking through what they needed their money to do for them, step by step, week by week, month by month, they improved and eventually got good with money.   You can too! If you need some help, YNAB is here: https://www.ynab.com/nerds     Follow Budget Nerds on YouTube Budget Nerds Livestreams: https://www.youtube.com/@YNABofficial/streams Budget Nerds Episodes: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuIUGmbCDklkDCDm-cQqv2g   Share your YNAB win with Ben and Ernie! [email protected]

Today it's Ben's turn to share the categories in his plan -- all 93 of them! Ernie opens with a challenge: did Ben actually change his plan after examining Ernie's categories in episode #132? You'll have to listen to find out, but Ben does break down his categories cleanly into ten category groups, divided between timely categories (bills, both regular and irregular) and purpose-driven categories such as giving, personal spending, and allowances for the kids. His former librarian shines through as well, the categories are organized in alphabetical order of course!   Ben is always good for a story, and as he explains how each category fits into his plan, he also shares stories of how those categories came to be. In many ways, his current plan is the result of years of resolving compications, frustrations, and clarifying what purpose his money was serving in each area of his life.   Follow Budget Nerds on YouTube Budget Nerds Livestreams: https://www.youtube.com/@YNABofficial/streams Budget Nerds Episodes: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuIUGmbCDklkDCDm-cQqv2g   Share your YNAB win with Ben and Ernie! [email protected]

The emergency fund is sacrosanct in the personal finance world. Nearly everyone considers an emergency fund to be a prudent thing to establish -- a necessity, even -- whether it's three to six months of living expenses or Dave Ramsey's thousand dollar baby step. At YNAB, however, the emergency fund is... complicated. While YNAB doesn't discourage emergency funds, if you are truly YNAB'ing and in particular assigning dollars to your non-monthly expenses, then an emergency fund starts to feel a lot less necessary.   To that end, Ben and Ernie step through the common stages they have observed thousands of YNAB'ers go through with emergency funds. For them, it's not that having cash set aside for unpredictable expenses is a problem, it's the lack of clarity that a big pile of cash simply titled "emergency fund" brings. To Ernie, for a seasoned YNAB'er who has thoroughly explored his or her non-monthly, less frequent expenses, the emergency fund ultimately boils down to a job loss fund.   So, whether you're just starting to build an emergency fund or you've had one for a while and are wondering what to do next, tune in for a discussion that really cuts to the core of what YNAB is all about.     Follow Budget Nerds on YouTube Budget Nerds Livestreams: https://www.youtube.com/@YNABofficial/streams Budget Nerds Episodes: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuIUGmbCDklkDCDm-cQqv2g   Share your YNAB wins with Ben and Ernie! [email protected]

Ernie is kicking off the new year with a fresh plan... but not a fresh start! For years, Ernie has made a fresh start at the beginning of every year, but the allure of data history and being able to search for transaction across multiple years was too strong this year. So Ernie is rolling forward his spending plan from 2025 into the New Year, but with some changes.   Ernie has also updated his 2026 plan with fresh emojis (some cute, some inscrutable). In today's episode he breaks down his categories and category groups, with some stories about how they came to be and how they have evolved through the years.   Follow Budget Nerds on YouTube Budget Nerds Livestreams: https://www.youtube.com/@YNABofficial/streams Budget Nerds Episodes: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuIUGmbCDklkDCDm-cQqv2g   Share your YNAB wins with Ben and Ernie! [email protected]

Happy New Year! Ben and Ernie kick off the 2026 season of Budget Nerds with a YouTube livestream, answering listener questions and engaging with comments. If you missed the livestream, this is your chance to listen to the playback on the podcast feed!   Be sure to subscribe to Budget Nerds on YouTube if you haven't already. As a subscriber you'll get notifications and updates about future livestreams.   Follow Budget Nerds on YouTube Budget Nerds Livestreams: https://www.youtube.com/@YNABofficial/streams Budget Nerds Episodes: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuIUGmbCDklkDCDm-cQqv2g   Share your YNAB wins with Ben and Ernie! [email protected]

In today's episode resident social media gurus Amber and Sarah, of Instagram and TikTok fame respectively, join the show to talk about the personal finance trends that are going viral among the Gen Z population right now. The economy is difficult to thrive in, especially for young people, and the Zoomers have come up with creative ways to use their native digital environment to execute the common goals of all people trying to improve their finances: pay off debt and get out of the paycheck to paycheck cycle.   In this episode Sarah and Amber share six TikTok and Instagram videos as examples of popular trends, including: "No Spend" November "No Swipe" November Making micro debt payments to stay engaged with the goal of paying off debt Gamifying likes and social media engagement to pay off debt   Ernie shares his enthusiam for personal finance challenges and trends that bring a social element to finance, while Ben ponders whether using social media to help pay off debt is creative or dystopian. One thing is for sure -- young adults are finding creative ways to improve their relationship with money and bond with others working toward the same goal.   Follow Budget Nerds on YouTube Budget Nerds Livestreams: https://www.youtube.com/@YNABofficial/streams Budget Nerds Episodes: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuIUGmbCDklkDCDm-cQqv2g   Share your YNAB wins with Ben and Ernie! [email protected]  

In today's episode, Ben and Ernie interview Lauren, a single mid-30's physical therapist living in Arizona. Lauren is already a legend in the Budget Nerds community for YNAB'ing for years completely manually, without ever connecting a bank account. A true budget nerd, she logs in daily to enter transactions and reconcile. She's never even done a file import to enter transactions!   Lauren shares her YNAB story which began with graduating from school and working her first job. Her newfound income felt like a financial safety blanket, and she began spending, unbeknowst to her, well beyond her means. She found herself deep into debt from both credit cards and student loans, and had to ask her mother for help making ends meet. Eventually Lauren discovered YNAB, learned how to spend more thoughtfully with cash on hand rather than debt, and slowly began to take control of her situation. In just a few years she paid off well over $100k of debt!   Lauren also shares her challenges planning as a single person, including the hidden costs of being single. Housing, taxes, products and services... many aspects of personal finance today are geared toward couples and families, and may not offer good options for single adults. Single people also face unique emotional challenges. While they may only be accountable to themselves financially, they also solely bear the burden of saving for potential job loss and other unforeseen events that could impact their cash flow. Many couples and families  have the peace of mind of two incomes, as well as the emotional stablity of two people working toward a common goal of financial stability.   Finally, Lauren breaks down her YNAB categories as well as her daily habits, including using a checkbook and reconciling her balances by hand in the register!   Follow Budget Nerds on YouTube Budget Nerds Livestreams: https://www.youtube.com/@YNABofficial/streams Budget Nerds Episodes: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuIUGmbCDklkDCDm-cQqv2g   Share your YNAB wins with Ben and Ernie! [email protected]  

A few episodes ago, Ben and Ernie walked through how to set up YNAB for the first time, focusing on the basics. Today, by popular request, they are covering the advanced setup, exploring every feature YNAB has to help you setup a spending plan that fits with your life. There's a lot here, so strap in nerds!   As with episode #123 on the basic YNAB setup, this episode relies heavily on screensharing of the YNAB app, so we recommend heading over to YouTube to watch the video version of the podcast.   Follow Budget Nerds on YouTube Budget Nerds Livestreams: https://www.youtube.com/@YNABofficial/streams Budget Nerds Episodes: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuIUGmbCDklkDCDm-cQqv2g   Share your YNAB wins with Ben and Ernie! [email protected]