2 effective ways of tackling your travel budget with YNAB (Part 2)

One of the key aspects of any travel plan is your travel budget. But how to tackle it on the go? In the previous article I presented a tool I’ve been using called YNAB (You Need A Budget).

Do you want to travel but don’t have the money right now? Do you worry that there won’t be enough time to save for your travel goals?

Las time I explained that YNAB is a personal finance software program and I taught you the first way of using it to achieve your travel dreams.

The first way is using it to help you save and protect enough money to go on your different journeys, by budgeting “travel money” each month, for as many months as you need to achieve the required amount.

That way, when you are ready to jump on the plane, the money is right in your bank account ready for you.

Photo: Flickr, Mani Babbar ~FreeBirD®~ Click the image to go to the original location.

So the first article is saving before the actual trip.

In this, the second article, I’ll teach you the second way of using YNAB for travel.

Travel budget on the go, the YNAB way

YNAB 4 rules.

The second way to use YNAB is to create a separate budget, just for your current trip and managing it using the counterpart iPhone/Android mobile app.

In other words, you sync your travel budget to your mobile device and then input transactions on the go. The app updates, letting you know how much money you have left.

New York travel budget

I’m going to show you how to use YNAB with an example:

Let’s say you’re going to New York for a week. Using my free guide How To Plan Your Trip you’ve estimated the amounts needed for each category as follows:

Overall budget: $1700.
Food: $590.
Attractions: $260.
Transportation: $145.
Shopping: $420.
Unforeseen expenses: $285.

I have created a category called “Trip” and then added subcategories for the different expenses. I filled in the budgeted amount for each sub-category. Click to enlarge.

This budget would first be synced with my mobile device, which results in the following images:

YNAB home view of the Phone app, showing the overall budget.

Here’s the overall budget in the “money” account, before adding transactions.

Budget view with all the values, before transactions are entered.

Now, the mobile app does not allow you to budget, only the desktop software can. That means that if you need to adjust the pre-set amounts and you are not bring your computer, you’re stuck with the values you defined in the beginning.

But if you are planning on bringing your computer with you, you can adjust the budget and then sync to your mobile device.

The mobile app is made for entering transactions on the spot.

I have actually requested they make the mobile app able to adjust the budget, so maybe if it’s something people need, they’ll do it in the future. I’ve heard the iPad app they’re working on right now will indeed have that ability.

Entering transactions

Your travel budget will work as long as you carefully track each of your transactions. That’s what your mobile app is for.

If you don’t own a mobile device, but brought your computer with you, you can save receipts and then enter transactions when you’re at your hotel room.

I’m going to use a purple circle to show you where to tap:

You can now see how much is left for this category:

In this way, you know exactly how much you’ve spent and how much you have left, so that you are in control of your expenses and your travel plans.

In the end, you’ll be able to see all of your transactions and review where the money went:

And this is the second way in which YNAB can help you stay on track with your travel budget. In the end you can sync back again to your computer to have the record of your expenses if you wish.

I really like YNAB, I think the software is fantastic and the mobile app needs some improvements, but gets the job done for the most part.

I’ve used it in my past few trips and it turns out (as can be seen in the last image) I get back home with a bit of money in  my balance, which is always good.

Here’s a short video of what the mobile app can do for you:

What about you? What tools do you use to keep track of your travel expenses?
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