When You Pay Your Credit Card in Full on Mobile

YNAB is designed to help you pay off credit card debt, but it works equally well for YNABers who pay their cards off in full regularly!

If you are a paid in full credit card user, your Credit Card Payment category Payment should always match the account balance owed. If it doesn’t, assign more to the category until it matches like the screenshot below:

The credit card account has a balance of -$100 and there is $100 available in the Credit Card Payment category.

Can you budget for it all?

If you aren’t able to assign enough money to the Credit Card Payment category for the full starting balance of your credit card and assign enough money in your spending categories for all of your current month's expenses, you might be riding the credit card float.

When you first set up your budget, you’ll see the account balance in your Account list, but the Payment amount won’t update automatically to cover that Starting Balance.

Budgeting for the Starting Balance in your Credit Card Payment category lets your budget know that you plan to take some of the money you have right now and use it to pay off the Starting Balance on the card.

What if I pay the statement balance?

Can I keep paying only the statement balance? Does it matter when I pay my card? (like weekly or once a month on the 10th or at the beginning of the month..?)

Yes! You don’t have to actually pay the balance on the card down to zero. You can pay the statement balance and still consider yourself paid in full, as long as you have the money set aside to pay it off completely at any time. Set aside where? In the Credit Card Payment category!