Another YNAB groupie here, and as an undiagnosed but probable ADD senior girl, I find that the structure of YNAb helps me so much. Add to that last year’s revamp of my budget to align better with personal joy, and I look forward to my money square-ups.
At heart I'm a creature of habit and also a rule follower. What helped was putting my calendar at the far left of my icon bar on my laptop and then YNAB second. I go in order so each day, I check the calendar first and Ynab second. Religiously, every day, because now that's the rule and I'm in the habit. Doing this means that I'm always caught up and can spot any mistakes my bank might make, which is more than you'd like to think.
The other game changer was putting a holding category with the total amount for that whole group as the first category for that group. At the beginning of the month when I'm doing the budget for that upcoming month, I subdivide the total amount of ready to assign into the six groups and only *then* start budgeting into the individual categories. That way I can do one group at a time and if I lose my place or get distracted, I can tell right where I was because the holding category still has money in it and needs to be assigned into that group - like six little mini budgets.
If I mess up, it will only be that group and not the whole budget for the month. I also know that if the group has enough money, then dividing it up into the individual categories is going to work out, so that eliminates fear and is reassuring and makes it more fun.
I also put the amount to budget into each category name so that it never needs to be figured out again. So each month, "insurance $225" gets $225 and I don't even have to think about it. If the amount changes, I chang the name. Easy peasy.
Positive names have been really helpful too, as Joan said. Making it fun is the key, and making it easy is the goal. Basically what works is eliminating the worry that I'm messing it up. Because as soon as I think I'm messing it up, it's really hard to stick with it. But knowing that my past self made it easy for today's self makes me feel self love.
"… knowing that my past self made it easy for today's self makes me feel self love." Wonderful, Julianne.
The older I get, and perhaps the more self-awareness I have, the more I am insisting on customizing software to work with how my brain is. This is inspiring how well you know yourself. And thanks for sharing, I'm passing this along to our YNAB teachers who often get asked for advice for how to work with overwhelm or fear around money.
I remember seeing this maybe a year or so ago, and related so hard in many areas of my life!! For YNAB, the thing that has helped me a lot is refreshing my category groupings and also renaming them to Taylor Swift lyrics - I even renamed my budget to So It Goes 🤣 I've also used emojis on my categories and fun names for a long time. I also run my life by checklists and reminders, so having a reminder I get to check off everyday to 💰 Check YNAB is really motivating.
Before I sound too together, I did this reset when I had a bunch of tedious work I was avoiding 🤣 but it created the momentum to tackle the tedious work so #winning? This was really helpful when I was doing a low-buy January, so I could see how making the choice to spend very little (where possible) had an immediate impact.
TLDR - if I make it fun and creative, I'm more interested in opening it up every day to see what's going on!
Examples:
🫶 This is Me Trying - category group at the top with my current fun goals, like 📅 Next Month (where our paychecks go), Adventures with Josh & Dakotah, Visit Rachel, and Christmas. These are the goal categories I think I'll put leftover funds into but having smaller goals and having them front and center has made it easier to put extra money received towards those goals.
🌟 I Can Handle My S - all the general monthly categories like food, gas, dog stuff and fun money. There's also a category for food for the months with 5 weeks.
🐝 I Protect the Family - all the monthly fixed bills.
✨ Dancing Through the Lightning Strikes - this is the group that fluctuates from month to month. I don't try to budget each category. Instead I have a 🤷♀️ I'm Not Sure Yet that I put a fixed amount of money into to cover those categories, which are things like clothes, haircuts, and 🐦🐿️ Sanctuary - yes we are into birds and also feed the squirrels.
🗓️ Long Story Short has our categories that I'm putting small amounts into each month. Our sinking funds/true expenses.
🎒 I Know Places We Can Go - our travel categories. I have categories in there to break down trip expenses mainly for planning ahead. I have trip categories of various things we want to do. If they become more serious, I will move one up to This is Me Trying.
🧾 The Manuscript - these are long-term categories without much in them, like Appliances, Furniture, Home Improvements.
The gamification of budgeting is what does it for me. YNAB is like play and when it wanders too far from that I change things up so that it is fun again.
I love that you have a principle that you come back to so you can stay on course even as things change over time. It's really easy to "set it and forget it" with this kind of thing.
Love this write up. The wall metaphor is pretty good (I'm not sure it fits exactly what I feel/think/do) but I see where it can create awareness and those create positive actions toward the end goal. I would love to see any tips or hints from others with ADHD put together into actionable items around money! I love reading through many different people's thoughts because there will usually be at least one thing that I can take with me and improve what I'm doing to keep the wheels on YNAB (and finances in general).
I adore YNAB but I will have great stretches of time and then horrible stretches of time reconciling, or lets be honest, even logging in! Every little bit helps. Thank you for writing about it thought - it's something you don't see out there a lot.
For me, using hyperfocus as a tool - so ADHD is a benefit for YNAB. I can now spend hours on YNAB instead of facebook... channel your superpowers, you got this.
Debbie, YNAB is probably the most interesting app on my phone these days! I've gotten rid of the black hole apps that drain me.
I know this isn't exactly what you're talking about but your comment reminded me of this recent Substack I read about someone who decided to fight back against filling every spare moment with infinite scrolling to consciously filling her spare moments with reading https://petya.substack.com/p/lessons-in-reading-from-scrolling
That’s really interesting, Dan. (I’m old enough to have happily moved from excessive book consumption to phones, and happily convert back. 😂 Interestingly, I can’t read on a kindle though - has to be a real book. This is also why I don’t visit Substack as often as I should 😂
Another YNAB groupie here, and as an undiagnosed but probable ADD senior girl, I find that the structure of YNAb helps me so much. Add to that last year’s revamp of my budget to align better with personal joy, and I look forward to my money square-ups.
At heart I'm a creature of habit and also a rule follower. What helped was putting my calendar at the far left of my icon bar on my laptop and then YNAB second. I go in order so each day, I check the calendar first and Ynab second. Religiously, every day, because now that's the rule and I'm in the habit. Doing this means that I'm always caught up and can spot any mistakes my bank might make, which is more than you'd like to think.
The other game changer was putting a holding category with the total amount for that whole group as the first category for that group. At the beginning of the month when I'm doing the budget for that upcoming month, I subdivide the total amount of ready to assign into the six groups and only *then* start budgeting into the individual categories. That way I can do one group at a time and if I lose my place or get distracted, I can tell right where I was because the holding category still has money in it and needs to be assigned into that group - like six little mini budgets.
If I mess up, it will only be that group and not the whole budget for the month. I also know that if the group has enough money, then dividing it up into the individual categories is going to work out, so that eliminates fear and is reassuring and makes it more fun.
I also put the amount to budget into each category name so that it never needs to be figured out again. So each month, "insurance $225" gets $225 and I don't even have to think about it. If the amount changes, I chang the name. Easy peasy.
Positive names have been really helpful too, as Joan said. Making it fun is the key, and making it easy is the goal. Basically what works is eliminating the worry that I'm messing it up. Because as soon as I think I'm messing it up, it's really hard to stick with it. But knowing that my past self made it easy for today's self makes me feel self love.
"… knowing that my past self made it easy for today's self makes me feel self love." Wonderful, Julianne.
The older I get, and perhaps the more self-awareness I have, the more I am insisting on customizing software to work with how my brain is. This is inspiring how well you know yourself. And thanks for sharing, I'm passing this along to our YNAB teachers who often get asked for advice for how to work with overwhelm or fear around money.
I remember seeing this maybe a year or so ago, and related so hard in many areas of my life!! For YNAB, the thing that has helped me a lot is refreshing my category groupings and also renaming them to Taylor Swift lyrics - I even renamed my budget to So It Goes 🤣 I've also used emojis on my categories and fun names for a long time. I also run my life by checklists and reminders, so having a reminder I get to check off everyday to 💰 Check YNAB is really motivating.
Before I sound too together, I did this reset when I had a bunch of tedious work I was avoiding 🤣 but it created the momentum to tackle the tedious work so #winning? This was really helpful when I was doing a low-buy January, so I could see how making the choice to spend very little (where possible) had an immediate impact.
TLDR - if I make it fun and creative, I'm more interested in opening it up every day to see what's going on!
Examples:
🫶 This is Me Trying - category group at the top with my current fun goals, like 📅 Next Month (where our paychecks go), Adventures with Josh & Dakotah, Visit Rachel, and Christmas. These are the goal categories I think I'll put leftover funds into but having smaller goals and having them front and center has made it easier to put extra money received towards those goals.
🌟 I Can Handle My S - all the general monthly categories like food, gas, dog stuff and fun money. There's also a category for food for the months with 5 weeks.
🐝 I Protect the Family - all the monthly fixed bills.
✨ Dancing Through the Lightning Strikes - this is the group that fluctuates from month to month. I don't try to budget each category. Instead I have a 🤷♀️ I'm Not Sure Yet that I put a fixed amount of money into to cover those categories, which are things like clothes, haircuts, and 🐦🐿️ Sanctuary - yes we are into birds and also feed the squirrels.
🗓️ Long Story Short has our categories that I'm putting small amounts into each month. Our sinking funds/true expenses.
🎒 I Know Places We Can Go - our travel categories. I have categories in there to break down trip expenses mainly for planning ahead. I have trip categories of various things we want to do. If they become more serious, I will move one up to This is Me Trying.
🧾 The Manuscript - these are long-term categories without much in them, like Appliances, Furniture, Home Improvements.
AMAZING. (Long Story Short is genius!)
this is so funny I love it!!
This is SOOO creative and fun!!! Thanks so much for sharing this. I’m very inspired by you!!
Aww...thanks! Emojis and creative category titles REALLY help!!
The gamification of budgeting is what does it for me. YNAB is like play and when it wanders too far from that I change things up so that it is fun again.
I love that you have a principle that you come back to so you can stay on course even as things change over time. It's really easy to "set it and forget it" with this kind of thing.
Love this write up. The wall metaphor is pretty good (I'm not sure it fits exactly what I feel/think/do) but I see where it can create awareness and those create positive actions toward the end goal. I would love to see any tips or hints from others with ADHD put together into actionable items around money! I love reading through many different people's thoughts because there will usually be at least one thing that I can take with me and improve what I'm doing to keep the wheels on YNAB (and finances in general).
I adore YNAB but I will have great stretches of time and then horrible stretches of time reconciling, or lets be honest, even logging in! Every little bit helps. Thank you for writing about it thought - it's something you don't see out there a lot.
For me, using hyperfocus as a tool - so ADHD is a benefit for YNAB. I can now spend hours on YNAB instead of facebook... channel your superpowers, you got this.
Debbie, YNAB is probably the most interesting app on my phone these days! I've gotten rid of the black hole apps that drain me.
I know this isn't exactly what you're talking about but your comment reminded me of this recent Substack I read about someone who decided to fight back against filling every spare moment with infinite scrolling to consciously filling her spare moments with reading https://petya.substack.com/p/lessons-in-reading-from-scrolling
That’s really interesting, Dan. (I’m old enough to have happily moved from excessive book consumption to phones, and happily convert back. 😂 Interestingly, I can’t read on a kindle though - has to be a real book. This is also why I don’t visit Substack as often as I should 😂
I'm a physical book and magazine reader to the bitter end as well!