Hey Jesse…I live in Houston and had to evacuate on Saturday after Ike plowed through town. My wife and I started using YNAB in July so we are noobs but I can tell you it has made a huge difference for us. Everything from buying supplies before the storm hit, to keeping ourselves sane after we had left town by going to a nice meal, renting a movie, knowing that we could afford it and move money around in the budget to make it work has made a huge difference. It also really helped to focus us when we were preparing. When we evacuated a few years ago for hurricane Rita we wasted a huge amount of money buying things that we didn’t really need. It’s extremely easy to just throw things in the shopping cart because, “hey, it’s an emergency, all bets are off!” I can tell you that is foolish and didn’t happen this time around.

Anyway, I’m kind of rambling b/c I’m really tired and still waiting for power to come on at our house. But saw the post and just thought that I should comment. To answer the question, yes the disaster does really happen. There’s no question my family has been through alot already this week, but I can tell you that having the budget and knowing that we could roll with the punches has eliminated at least some of the uncertainty that is rampant in these situations.

So thanks for all the work and for the great system/program/support that you have put together here. Keep it up!