We’re growing. That’s all there is to it!

We’re looking for a fantastic AIR/Flex developer for a full-time gig for (at least, especially if things go well) the next six months.

If you’re interested, or know someone who is, please check out our job posting!

We’ve received quite a few questions in our support queue asking how one goes about using a gift certificate they’ve received (from a very thoughtful, well-meaning, generous person).

Here’s how it goes.

1. Click on the Purchase link at the top of the YNAB Site.

2. Click on the Checkout with PayPal button:

3. Log in to your PayPal account:

4. Click the Enter gift certificate link:

5. Enter the gift code you received in the original gift certificate email received from PayPal:

6. Click ‘Continue’

You should be all set!

I tweeted this yesterday:

re: YNAB 3 (http://tinyurl.com/mnlyxm). This week we went from 2 FT devs to 5. Here’s hoping we maintain a scorching development pace.

A scorching development pace = a scorching burn rate of cash.

For years I’ve operated with YNAB always in the black. Always. Even when the black was approximately $42 (February of 2005).

The other day I looked at what the developers would cost weekly, revenue projections, and money saved and realize we’re going to be deep in the red until YNAB 3 launches. Based on our burn rate, and the cash we’ve saved (operating on a budget, afterall) I think we’ll be just fine.

But it’s going to be a lot closer to the edge than I’ve been with the business (or personally) for years. The closest feeling I can get is when I did YNAB full-time during the summer of 2006 while I was studying for the CPA exam (that was when YNAB Pro was being developed!) and waiting to start my “real” job several months later.

In light of the cash flow projections, and the resulting knapp (German) feeling I was experiencing, I did what any good husband would do. I called Julie to let her know.

Jesse: Hey Julie. I was running the numbers for how much development we still have left to go, how much we’re going to be bringing in, and how much we have saved in the business to tide us over and…things are going to be tight for the next while.

Julie: How tight?

Jesse: Well, you know how your birthday is in a few days?

Jesse: We just need to tighten the belt as much as possible and put off all discretionary purchases. I don’t want to have to tap our emergency fund (an aside: because it took us so LONG to get it!).

Julie: I don’t either. What about groceries?

Jesse: Yeah, we probably should feed the kids less.

Jesse: Just avoid discretionary stuff.

Julie: Okay.

And THAT is why I love my wife.

But this is the real story.

Since that discussion, I have been loving life (even more; I’m a natural life-lover). I feel like we’re back to the Good Old Days of simplicity. Decisions are already made. No, we’re not eating out. No, we’re not going out. No, we’re not buying that. This is easy. It’s like I’ve rediscovered my discipline from my college-poor days.

How can I keep this feeling indefinitely?

I’m not sure. All I know is that it’s a welcomed feeling of control over my money. It is just money after all. And I feel like I’ve rediscovered a part of me, and a part of our relationship, that was stifled by the List to Make the House Awesome (It’s separate from the Budget where we were throwing extra money, working our way down the list of prioritized things we want for our house to be awesome. I believe there are 18 items and we’ve managed to cross off two.), social events, etc.

Someone please point me to this post once the finances return to normal.

Takeaways:

You don’t need that. Don’t buy it.

Go home to eat dinner.

Repair that. Don’t replace it.

Increase memories and decrease stuff.

Simplify.

(An aside after re-reading this and debating about even posting it: The message in this is the Good Old Days of simplicity a la Joe Dominguez’ Your Money or Your Life — not our temporary cash flow crunch a la [insert bank name here]. We’re fine. You really think I’d do things any other way than to be extremely certain that everything will be okay? No. We’re not offering the option of pre-paying for YNAB 3. Though I’m flattered at the offer.)

I couldn’t figure out how to embed the video here. It’s over in my Facebook profile. Link.

Happy to report that Mrs. Micah loves YNAB.

YNAB loves Mrs. Micah as well. If you’re a freelancer (who isn’t these days?) then you’ll need to subscribe to Mrs. Micah’s blog.

Finances + Freelancing = Nightmare

OR

Finances + Freelancing + Mrs. Micah’s Tips = Fantastic

Your call!

I absolutely love the new year. I get jazzed about goal-setting (budgeting is, after all, simply goal setting/achieving on an ongoing basis).

Here are some high-level things I want to focus on this year, with my accompanying game plan. In the past (revisit your goals often), I’ve written about goals in general. This year, however, I’m simply going to do it all right here, for everyone to see. It’ll give me a bit more accountability. Take from it what you will.

Where’s My Focus?

Family – the kids and my wife. I think those need to be broken up for sure. Make sure I focus on Julie with some things as well (put flower-sending on autopilot perhaps?). So we have kids and Julie. I think I can be fine lumping the three kids together.

Church – definitely some areas for improvement there. I’m going to go broader and call it spiritual. I want to make sure I’m increasing my knowledge of spiritual things — not just secular things.

Physical – Happy to report that I didn’t gain any weight this year, but I have some areas where I want to specifically focus. I’ll get to that later.

Hobbies – Would like to do some things specific to my new found love: Jiu Jitsu.

Financial – Just brainstorming here, but some big things on my mind lately are our year supply of food (or lack thereof), 72-hour emergency kits (again, or lack thereof), and six-month emergency fund (working toward it, but it’s too slow). Also, I’d like to not be paying so much interest on the mortgage (that was a 2008 goal, to get a house).

Making My Goals SMART

SMART goals are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely. All good things. Though timely should really maybe labeled as ‘timeframe’. The point is to have a deadline.

Refining…

Kids – do a “Dad date” with each of the kids once a month. Focus here on whatever they want to do. Lydia’s could obviously be fairly simple. The time needs to be long enough to have an impact (an hour or two).

Julie – just ask her often, “What can I do right now to help out?” That should go a long ways (idea from a guy at church, not my own). Often perhaps isn’t specific enough, and how do I measure this? Have some secret paper in my wallet that I check off? Perhaps.

Spiritual – read from 5:00-5:30 am every weekday. Keep a journal of what I’m reading. Ah, and check off the goal above in my journal.

Physical – No soda this year. H₂O, here I come! Also, I want to get my BFP to 9%. In years past I’ve also prescripted some workout for the year and about 90 days into the new year I’m already tired of the workout and want to do something else. So I’m shooting for a results-oriented goal here of a change in bodyfat, rather than a task-oriented goal. Let the task change as necessary/desired, I know the result I want to get.

Jiu Jitsu – Roll twice each week. Keep a journal. Enroll in classes by March of 2009 (at the moment, my friend is teaching me).

Year-Supply – this one’s become important to me as of late. Perhaps it was a stupiphany I had recently. My job is to provide for the family’s needs, and Julie’s job is to all the hard stuff. I encourage everyone to have an emergency fund of 3-6 months’ expenses, and that’s great and necessary, but what use will that money be for the family if disaster strikes?

Hey kids! An earthquake just struck, the water supply will be out for four days, we don’t have any water, but look — we have six months’ of money saved! Let’s drink that!

Have a year supply of food and two-week supply of water before the end of January 2009. We’ve been working on our year supply of food and I’m fairly confident we can finish it off this month if we don’t put anything into our emergency fund for January.

Oh, there’s an entire post on this to come, but if you’re wondering how I calculated it all, feel free to use this year supply spreadsheet (Google Doc). Just save your own copy of it before you dive in and start making changes (that everyone else can see).

72-Hour Kits – Have them done for five people by the end of February.

Emergency Fund – this thing’s creeping along. We’re consistently putting money into it, but not enough. All I know is that by the end of the year I want to have an entire, cushy, six months of income saved. Call me crazy, but I want even more cushion. I haven’t yet figured out how this can be accelerated.

Mortgage Interest – pay $100 more per month on the mortgage (this will be done through the autopay feature). Find the $100 through grocery savings, which will come through the grocery game.

Bite-Sized Goals

The key is to make these goals bite-sized. Some of them are already in their simplest forms, others will need some work. My plan is to make a monthly action plan at the beginning of each month to ensure that I’m tracking well. The year-supply spreadsheet is a good example. I’ve entered what we already have, and now I know exactly what we still need. I can create a timeline for when we’ll be purchasing what, and have that finished by the end of January.

Just dial it down to the level of granularity necessary:

Finances > Emergency Fund > Required Amount > Monthly Amount > Steps necessary to free up that amount each month. Done.

Since the 2008 race for the White House began…when was that, I think back in ‘83, we’ve heard a lot of talk. We’ve heard a lot of pundits, predictions, predicaments and plumbers.

Yesterday Julie and I dragged the kids down to the credit union, stood in line for an hour, and voted. Harrison, our 2 1/2 year old, had had enough by the time we were actually voting. He purposely yelled as loud as he could while Julie was holding him (and attempting to vote). I got lucky because I was holding Lydia (alright, here’s a picture already — stop twisting my arm!).

Anyway, the volunteers (and everyone else) handled it well. Harrison was simply expressing what everyone else was feeling. The wait was long.

But man was it worth it! Voting is special. Please, everyone, make sure you vote.

However, do not, under any circumstances, believe that someone else is going to make all of your wildest dreams come true. Only you will.

We’ve heard so much, from every single possible direction, about how the government’s going to do this, our elected official will do that, a committee will be called, a commission will be formed, a study will be published…your congressman will be there to give you job training, your senator will watch the kids while you go to work, and the President himself will pick up the tab at the grocery store… “No really Mr. Mecham, let me get that for you.”

“Why, thank you Mr. President.”

Nah.

As a matter of fact, Nah Thanks.

Make sure you vote for yourself. Ultimately, YOU will affect your life in ways far greater than any elected official ever could. YOU will decide what’s right and YOU will make the tough decisions (perhaps you’ll get a call at 3AM?).

At the end of the day, you know who’s REALLY in charge. You are! So go and vote, rain or shine, in a long or short line.

And then, every day wake up, and cast your ballot again (you’re a write-in candidate).

We’re seeing a plethora of new services popping up to manage your money. What has me hopeful is that there’s a lot more excitement about this area in general. What has me not so hopeful is that we’re seeing a lot of the same reactive paradigm that plagued the personal finance software arena since the very first Quicken (no foul on Quicken there, they were quite at the forefront for the time).

There is some value in looking backward. You can pull together reports to help you prepare your taxes (a non-value added exercise, obviously, but a must) and you can pull interesting tidbits out of your reams of data:

Hey honey! Did you know that 15% of our food purchases last year were soy-related?

However, the tremendous value in a financial application comes not from the powerful, fancy, interpolating graphs that tell you everything that’s happened. It comes from the day-to-day managing of the now, and planning for the future.

We spent $45 on iPhone accessories during October.

..is not nearly as valuable as this question:

How much will we spend on iPhone accessories during October?

Why? I have no idea. Honestly, the more I see the results people are getting with the YNAB Methodology, the more it becomes clear to me that it works, yet I do find myself struggling to articulate exactly why it works.

I suppose this is why I’ve known that Reporting is a weakness in YNAB Pro (though our current beta lets you export to a spreadsheet application in oh, about 2.2 seconds) and I’ve always let other features jump ahead of it in line.

Which features took (take) precedence?

I’ve tried to focus on cutting down the minimum time required to use the software. I’ve focused on the managing and planning side of the equation (Quick Budgeting, bank transaction downloading, and with an upcoming beta, automatic payee cleanup…WALMART ABC123 becomes Walmart…it’s in alpha, etc.).

I really want to get people connected on those two aspects. Get their money in front of them more, not less. Have them be involved in the mangement and plan. I don’t want it to be automatic, I want it to be habitual. I want people looking forward and answering the right questions, not wincing from something that’s already happened.

The big things:

For the past few weeks, we’ve been working on YNAB Pro version 2.5. Our beta testers have been diligently hammering on it, and now we think we’re less than two weeks away from a public release.  I’m excited about this release for two reasons.  The first reason is that we’ve added some cool new features:

• You can add notes to categories and budget cells on the budget screen.  Now when you need to remember why you had to budget an extra $50 this month in the gifts category, you can make a note that it was for your spouse’s birthday.
• You can transfer money from one account to another really easily.
• You can bulk-categorize transactions.  (This is especially helpful when you import transactions)
• When you download a file to be imported from your bank’s website, YNAB Pro will automatically start and initiate the importation process.  (No more hunting around for the file)
• And a few more…

The little things:

In addition to the features however, I’m probably more excited about the “little things” that we’ve changed.  When you think of a program or a web page that you really like to use – one that just seems to “get it,” – chances are that program acts the way you expect it to.  I don’t just mean that it has the features you expect.  I mean that when you click on something, or hit a key, or hover over a certain part of the screen, it does exactly what you expect.  In fact, it probably does so many things that you expect, you don’t even think about it.  To prove my point it might be easier to think about the last web page or software you used that you didn’t like.  Chances are it almost never did what you expected.  It doesn’t take many mouse clicks in software like this before you’re ready to give up and you might not even be sure why!  All you know is that you feel frustrated.

When we developed YNAB Pro originally, we tried to pay attention to a lot of “little” things because we know they add up!  Every time we asked the question, “What should the software do there?”, we tried to answer by saying, “Well, what would I want and expect it to do?”  I think we did a pretty good job with this, and consequently, I think YNAB Pro is pretty enjoyable to use.  That belief is reinforced by our fans, but after spending every workday with the software for the past few weeks, I started noticing some little things that we didn’t do right or that we missed:

• “Wait, that took too many clicks.”
• “Why is that taking so long?”
• “Ugh – that feels sluggish!”
• “Wait, that’s not what I expected”
• And a few more…

Now that I’m full time, I’ve got time to really dig in and investigate when I see YNAB Pro do something I don’t expect, even if it seems like a “little thing”.  There are over 100 features, fixes, and changes in this next release, and a lot of them fall in the “little thing” category.  My guess is that you won’t even consciously notice most of them.  Hopefully you’ll just think, “Wow, I really like this new version,” even if you can’t say why.  But let me give you a hint:

• It’s much faster and more responsive – Loading is faster, clicking around is faster, renaming categories is faster…you get the idea
• There are fewer mouseclicks required to begin editing a cell in the register once the transaction is selected
• You can reorder the account tabs just by dragging them around
• Payee entry is not case-sensitive anymore (Typing “yn” and hitting tab will select “YNAB” instead of changing it to say “ynAB”)
• All of the right-click menus just disable items that are invalid instead of hiding them.  This makes the menu much more predictable and discoverable
• And trust me, the list does go on…

You can expect to get your hands on this release very soon, and we can’t wait to hear what your favorite “little” change is.  Many of these changes were a direct result of people telling us about them on our forums, so if we left something out, and YNAB Pro isn’t doing what you want or expect, let us know!

WARNING: This is a rant. I would say skip ahead a few paragraphs if you don’t want a rant, but you’d still be getting a rant. The whole darn thing is one big rant.

If you’re stuck in a job you hate, do three things today that will help you like your job. If you like your job, you’ll make more money. Find everything interesting and you’ll be happier. Whose fault is it really that you hate what you do? You want me to say it’s your boss. But it’s not. It’s someone else.

If you’re job-less, what are you going to do? Be down about it? Mope? Blame someone? Blame everyone?

When you’re done with that, let me know how things have improved. Be proactive, get out there, and sell yourself!

Your expenses are higher than your income. Whose fault is that? The slick marketers, copywriters, and salesman that prey on the psychologically weak? So are you just saying that you’re psychologically weak? Fair enough. That means it’s still your fault.

You’re stuck in a job you love but the income doesn’t meet your needs, so you’ve been managing the gap with credit cards and things have gotten out of control. I’m glad you love your job. Find a way to make more money though! This is all up to you! If you’re not making more money, it’s your fault.

Are you saying, “I can’t help it” way too often? (Even once is too much).

Stop blaming everyone but yourself! It’s the recession. It’s the economy. It’s the president. It’s the price of gas. It’s my spouse. It’s my crazy kid. It’s my neighbor. It’s my boss. It’s the stock market.

Why don’t you start saying IT’S ME every once in a while? Everyone around you would be happier if you did. And then you could actually start doing things instead of just complaining about them all the time.

This is directed to everyone but you. You’re the best. You never make mistakes. You’re infallible.

You’re also so full of yourself that you believed the garbage I just wrote in the prior paragraph.

Porter has discovered it works to his advantage to be agreeable. When I asked him why he did X (like break the window downstairs because he was golfing downstairs), what was his response? “Oh, Dad. Sorry. I didn’t know.”

I mean, seriously, I know he knew. I don’t know if he knows I know he knew. But he probably does. That statement, as insincere as it likely is (he’s learned the phrase prior to learning the actual meaning is my guess) puts me at ease a bit when I’m on the warpath. What a nice thing to say. Shoulder the blame and express some ignorance. (But do it sincerely).

I just don’t understand why people can’t admit that something’s their fault. Fess up! You’re not all-knowing! So you didn’t know your job would have a boss that drives you crazy. What can you productively do about? So you chose an occupation that isn’t quite bringing in the income you’d like…what can you do about it? So the economy is slow (is it though? Didn’t we just hear about it growing two percent?). What are you going to do about it?

We have all of these talking heads surrounding us, telling us how bad things are, how so-and-so has done X and Y which means Z for you. Seriously? Do other people have that much influence over me that I can’t think for myself and take some action? Am I such a sheep that I just BAAhaahaa when appropriate and follow the others?

How does complaining possibly help you — ever? You tell me one time (leave a comment) where you sat there complaining and wringing your hands and that made things better.

Tell me one time where blaming someone else made a situation improve.

I can’t think of one.

So, WHY DO WE ALWAYS COMPLAIN–BLAMING OTHER PEOPLE FOR OUR CIRCUMSTANCES?

I love YNABers that I run into on the forums because they aren’t complaining. They’re realizing that a situation is at hand and disaster is imminent unless they take ACTION. They’re DOING something and they’ll be rewarded for it. Some of them probably could feel justified pointing the finger of blame elsewhere, but what are they doing instead? They’re taking action. They’re recognizing that they have, as Dr. Covey puts it, a “circle of influence” and they’re operating within that circle.

The center of the circle of influence is you. So start there when you want change. It’s amazing how taking a bit of action, setting some goals, and being ferocious about it can change you. And then you’ve changed your world. Finally.