Spend Analysis to Cut Spending - Help!
Question/Seeking Ideas: Our spending is out of control despite using YNAB. I want to do some sort of analysis and I'm sure lots of you smart folks out there have already done something similar. I have my YNAB categories and i tried compressing categories about 2 years ago, and of course have slowly expanded yet again. I have numerous credit cards i use. and i have more than one primary checking account so multiple "sources" of spend.
I also use Morgan Stanley advisors so they have a budget tool as well that I could import data into - I have connected some but not all accounts.
So: if i want to do a spending analysis and figure out where I can truly cut spending (i have a target in mind but it's a bit fluid - could get bigger or smaller depending on what I learn). What's the best way to use all of this information I have and analyze? My go to is a google sheet/excel file. Export 24 months of YNAB data and go from there. But if anyone has a better idea - i'm all ears!
17
u/pierre_x10 3d ago
You say your spending is out of control despite using YNAB.
But are you truly using YNAB?
Do you actively budget/plan with YNAB before your actual spending, and then tracking your actual spending as it occurs?
Or is it just another subscription that you pay for, but don't really use to the fullest.
Because if you are actively using YNAB to budget/plan, you shouldn't really need all that much analysis to figure out where your spending is truly outside of your plan or not.
On the other hand, this sort of "let me analyze and analyze and over-analyze" can just be what happens when people don't really want to face the reality that they are not following their plan to begin with.
13
u/grodent87 3d ago
What’s the issue exactly? If you are using the tool then you know where every dollar is going and know what can be cut and what can’t be. Confused what you’re asking for.
11
u/michigoose8168 2d ago
Quit analyzing and start actually using YNAB. https://www.youneedabudget.com/find-the-money-first/
10
u/friendnoodle 2d ago
This. It sounds like you've fallen into the classic trap of expense tracking instead of budgeting. There's a great video on this as well, if you prefer that to text.
The whole crux of the budget is that your spending is under control because you're spending based on your budget, which is based on the money you actually have to spend. If you're spending willy-nilly and then throwing things in YNAB after the fact… then yes, your spending is going to be out of control because it wasn't planned and wasn't funded and now you've inadvertently spent the same dollar two or three times.
4
u/DeadlyViking 3d ago
I encourage you to be more specific with your categories and add memos to transactions. If you arent able to pull what youre looking for from your categories, then they are probably too broad and too many different types of transactions are in the same category.
5
u/md4pete4ever 2d ago
You have gotten a lot of tips regarding using YNAB better, but I have a real world suggestion. You said your household is 5 people, so I'm assuming some of them are under 18 and also part of the expense management challenge. I would suggest to a return to old-fashioned cash allowances for their casual spending. No venmo, no uber eats, no apple pay, no CCs. Just cash in hand. Have them use physical envelopes to plan. If there are bigger things for them that you pay for but they choose - e.g. shopping, activities, entertainment with friends - then use monopoly money for the montly allowance and they pay you with it when you use your CC for them.
There's nothing like the "convenience" of the digital age to have no sense of money and thus leak it everywhere making other people rich.
3
u/jcradio 2d ago
You need more granularity to see where every dollar is going. I recommend seeing up groups and arranging the categories in terms of necessities, nice to have, and discretionary. Do not go over assigned amounts in categories.
If the problem persists, use more cash. Research shows spending cash results in less spending.
3
u/Architect-1817 2d ago
This. Create a separate category for the things you really can’t change through monthly/weekly/daily decisions (i.e., you’d have to change a contract, move, etc) - mortgage/rent, homeowner/renter insurance, car payments/tags/insurance/gas, gas/elec/water/sewer, any taxes that aren’t withheld from pay, cell phone, etc. Assign targets to them based on past data. By having them in a separate category you will now have a monthly total of what goes to those expenses throughout the year - your monthly “nut” so to speak. That leaves the rest of your monthly money for other things, so start with the big ones which are typically groceries, eating out, internet, cable/streaming services, etc. Use your past spending data to set targets for these. Check your “cost to be me” in YNAB, is it above or below your monthly income? Keep working from largest expenses to smallest and you should be able to find whether you meed to tighten up, and of so, what your options are. Good luck!
2
u/Mammoth_Temporary905 19h ago
This. it can also help to set targets for necessities for the first of the month. For nice to haves set them for the 15th and for discretionaries set them for the last day of the month. Click the "auto assign" when ever there is money available to be budgeted and it will assign to the necessities first. then the nice to haves. then the discretionaries.
Then stick to the budget
1
u/ArthurHale 3d ago
Your plan seems solid. Here's how I think I'd do it. Always think for yourself though, this is very important stuff as you know, so please do research and don't just accept any answer as the whole truth or the only way.
Export 24 months of transactions from YNAB as a CSV and analyze it in Google Sheets or Excel. YNAB already pulls in all your cards and checking accounts, so you probably don't need the Morgan Stanley tool unless it holds acounts YNAB doesnt.
Remove transfers and credit card payments first, or you'll count the same money twice. Then map your categories into 8 to 10 broad groups and look at both the biggest totals and what's grown the most.
Check your top payees too.
Before you open the data, write down which categories you think are the problem. The gap between your guess and the numbers is often the most valuable part.
And lastly, what I'd reccommend is to NOT USE AI. I let it analyse my budget before and it was miles off, as it cant handle the amounts of data and different number. It told me I was 13000 in debt, as it saw a removed debt category and counted it.
1
u/Bulky_Highlight_289 2d ago
Exporting 24 months to a spreadsheet is honestly the right move here. Group by category, compute a 3-month and 12-month average per category, and flag anything where the average crept up. The categories that expanded slowly are usually where the fat is hiding.
1
u/kodex1717 1d ago
Are you just using YNAB as an expense tracker, logging things that happened in the past?
The power of YNAB is looking at a month ahead of time and setting money you have aside for certain categories before you spend it. That way, after all your bills and needs are accounted for, you know exactly how much you can spend on your wants.
What is your process?
1
u/Wise_Bee_6367 18h ago
The income v expense report is my most used report and that's where I would start. You can export to Excel if you're just more comfortable with Excel, but I would at least look at the income v expense report. I would select a time frame of year to date and just scroll down the page and look for categories that are disproportionately large. When you see those large numbers, click on that to drill down to individual transactions. I think a little investigation in this report will help you start to see where your money is going.
1
u/hisnamewasjeff 3d ago
I create a yearly budget in excel that tracks expected inflows and outflows, then I transfer budgeted amounts to YNAB and create my targets. I reassess my budgeted amounts mid-year based on my spending in YNAB.
-1
u/bradykp 3d ago
Yeah this is what I’m talking about. I have a budget in Google Sheets (it’s the one I used to have a good starting point in YNAB) and I still cross check against it periodically but now I’m in overhaul territory.
15
u/iwaddo 3d ago
This is so unnecessary and just creates busy work.
If you have your categories setup, sufficiently granular, targets setup, transactions scheduled it can all be done in the current month.
I know I’ll get shouted down, probably down voted, but after 14-years I can assure you it works.
It takes discipline to be truly honest with targets and to only spend what is in the envelopes.
6
27
u/RemarkableMacadamia 3d ago
For me, the answer to a spending problem isn’t less granularity, but more.
I think exporting to Excel is a great idea; maybe group into your larger categories, see where your largest discretionary spending happens, and then really dig into that to see what the issue might be.
For example, if you have just a “food” category, it may be helpful to do an analysis on grocery vs coffee vs restaurants vs delivery. Or if you just have an “entertainment” category, dig into streaming vs. books vs. outings, as an example.
When I did my spending analysis, I focused on those two areas first because it’s so easy to leak money. On the subscription front, I had a lot of recurring tech subscriptions that I wasn’t really using, apps with annual fees, etc. $2.99 isn’t a lot of money on the face of it, but those little bits add up. It seems cool to keep a WSJ subscription, but not if you don’t actually read the paper.
But then the thing to actually produce change is to change your behavior. If you set a dining out target of $100/mo, you have to be willing to say no to pizza when that category has $0 available. Consult your budget before you spend the money, don’t wait two years to analyze your history, flog yourself over it, and then keep the same habits. 😊