Have you felt overwhelmed trying to think of categories for your money when you start a fresh spending plan? Or just wished someone would come up with new categories for you when you need to plan for a major life event? You're in luck, someone has done all that work for you! They are called YNAB templates. In today's episode Ben and Ernie take a look at the new templates feature in YNAB, and share their experiments incorporating templates into their own spending plans.

There are a number of templates available, ranging from very general, such as the beginner and minimalist templates, to highly specific, such as getting a new puppy or renovating your kitchen. Templates have categories preloaded and organized for you, and some even have targets with ballpark figures. The idea is to help you think of the various things you need to plan for, big and small. For instance, when planning a vacation most people immediately think of airfare and hotels or Air B&B, but there are also small expenses like parking and souvenirs that can add up to big bucks over the course of a trip! With the travel template, all these things have already been considered for you, so you can just import the template directly into your plan and set targets that fit your trip.

Ben and Ernie each picked a template to import into their plan (it's easy to import templates -- just find the one you want to use, one click and it imports straigth into your plan). Ben chose travel and used it for a recent beach vacation. Ernie chose food since he and his family have recently changed their habits around eating out and shopping for groceries. Of course, templates aren't set in stone, so Ben and Ernie modified them to fit their own situation.

If you find yourself stuck on building categories in your plan, or just need some fresh inspiration, try out a template!

Find your YNAB template here:

https://www.ynab.com/templates

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Share your YNAB wins with Ben and Ernie!

budgetnerds@ynab.com

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