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Elizabeth Starr Harden, LLC

personal money coach

How-Tos & Tutorials

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How to Pull a Free Credit Report

Here we are, again. January. The start of a brand new year. Some people start the year with some New Year's Resolutions. I'm not one of them. It's just not my thing. Nevertheless, I do tend to view the beginning of a new year as a good time to take a fresh look at my goals and review the past twelve months - what did I do, what did I not do, what I want to do better. I also use the beginning of a new year as a reminder for several household and finance maintenance tasks such as changing … [Read more...] about How to Pull a Free Credit Report

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YNAB Transfers and categorizing savings

I received an email this weekend asking a very common question about handling transfers in YNAB. The question is so common, I decided to post my response publicly. Perhaps others will find it helpful. What is the reason to not categorize transfers? We want to transfer money to savings accounts and track balances through YNAB…what are we missing? My Answer: It all comes down two things: money is fungibleit’s the Category balances, not the Account balances, that determine the purpose … [Read more...] about YNAB Transfers and categorizing savings

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Decoding YNAB’s Account Type options

How about a little decoding fun? One of the first tasks you’ll tackle when setting up your YNAB4 budget is setting up your Accounts. The first couple of Accounts everyone enters are usually very basic and relatively self-explanatory: checking, savings, credit cards, cash. We’re all familiar with these types of accounts and matching our physical accounts with YNAB’s account types is fairly straightforward. But what happens when we have an account that isn’t so straightforward? … [Read more...] about Decoding YNAB’s Account Type options

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Can I Change the Month Start Date in YNAB?

One of the most frequently raised issues among new YNABsters is the monthly layout of the YNAB4 Budget screen*. Perhaps you're paid once a month on the 15th and you want your "month" to run from the 15th of one month to the 14th of the next. Or maybe you're paid every two weeks and you want the "month" time blocks to be "two week" blocks instead. Or are you struggling because you have big payments due early in the month so you pay them in the previous month? It's confusing to budget this … [Read more...] about Can I Change the Month Start Date in YNAB?