While the folks at YNAB have no opinion on how you should spend your money (that's a highly personal decision and up to you to decide), there's one thing that just keeps coming up: restaurants! Over and over again, new budgeters find that much of their money is being spent dining out at restaurants and ordering take out, and many of those budgeters decide to cut back on it after realizing this fact.

 

So today Ben and Ernie continue their discussion on food spending by sharing their strategies for keeping the dining budget in control without depriving yourself too much. It turns out, you CAN eat out without blowing the budget, with a little bit of planning and some careful category management.

 

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If you haven't noticed it you might actually live under a rock -- groceries have gotten expensive these days! Inflation has crept into nearly every crevice of the economy, but food prices in particular have risen drastically. If anyone's up to the task of managing the budget with high food prices, it's budget nerds, and in today's episode Ben and Ernie share their strategies for keeping your grocery category under control.

 

One key takeaway -- it's OK to spend a lot of money on groceries! Health and nutrition are important, and many people choose to buy the best food they can afford, and consequently allocate a large portion of their budget to groceries. There's nothing wrong with that approach! YNAB is all about helping you spend your dollars according to your values, and healthy, high quality food can be one of your values too.

Ben returns to the show (with a very cute baby) and he and Ernie answer viewer-submitted questions.  

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Did you know you can use YNAB to track your investments too? Former investment advisor and current YNAB team member Matthew Amster-Burton joins the show to talk about how he uses YNAB to get real nerdy with his investment accounts.

 

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While Ben is out on paternity leave, Ernie invites Jesse Mecham -- the founder of YNAB and therefore the ultimate budget nerd -- onto the show to answer 73 questions about life, budgeting, and whether or not Jesse will ever fix his golf swing.

 

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Erin Lowell, a lead educator at You Need A Budget, joins the show to replace Ben.... just kidding, Ben is irreplaceable! But while he's out on paternity leave, Ernie is hosting the show with guests.

 

Erin has a LOT of experience budgeting, and a fair amount of experience buying and renovating houses, so she shares a recent experience buying a beautiful old home on a 15-year mortgage and renovating the kitchen on a budget, while managing the stresses of moving and being without a place to cook.

 

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Spend a little time with budgeters working hard to pay off debt and you'll hear the question: should you use the snowball method or the avalanche method to pay off debt? Though there are fierce proponents of both methods, Ben and Ernie say... why not both?

 

Ben shares his hot take on this controversial question, and they discuss a third method for paying off debt: the anger method!

 

YNAB Debt Bootcamp

https://www.youneedabudget.com/debt-bootcamp/

 

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Ben and Ernie confess their deepest, darkest budgeting habits in this episode, and share some confessions from listeners.

 

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YNAB is a very powerful and flexible tool, allowing you many ways to build and organize your budget. Unfortunately, that means for some people it can be overwhelming when you first start! Ben and Ernie remind us that the budget should reflect how YOU see your life -- your values and your priorities -- and once you start viewing the budget in this way, your categories will follow.

 

Links:

• ‘Share Your Categories’ Reddit thread https://www.reddit.com/r/ynab/comments/skem1f/meta_share_your_categories_fortnightly_thread_for/
• Budgeting Together https://www.youneedabudget.com/budgeting-together/

 

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Break out your checkbooks and flip to the transaction registry, it's time to reconcile your account! Wait, no, never mind -- who even uses a checkbook these days? Well, reconciliation is a word that starts glaze over many people's eyes, but it's actually a powerful tool for budgeting, and it doesn't have to be tedious or boring! Ernie even reconciles in the bathtub!

 

Linkies:

• https://docs.youneedabudget.com/article/1705-finding-your-cleared-bank-balance-reconciling
• https://docs.youneedabudget.com/article/166-reconciling-accounts
• https://docs.youneedabudget.com/article/1666-keeping-your-budget-accurate-on-mobile

And a meme for good measure: https://www.facebook.com/iYNAB/photos/a.10150124831278703/10159139651953703

 

Budget Nerds on YouTube:

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