YNAB You Need A Budget

[Viflux]

I'm posting in the success stories section, because one day my story will truly be one of success.

About a month ago I decided that my girlfriend (of 5+ years) and I needed to make some drastic changes. There are 2 significant areas of our lives that needed adjustment; our health and our wealth. This isn't the place for the former, so that's the last you'll hear of it. This forum seems to be an especially useful place for information on the latter, however.

Starting our adventure, we have a net worth of roughly -$32,000. We're both in our 20's, and she just graduated from college. My student debt is gone (I graduated in 2003) so that's a blessing. We don't have a house, our car is leased (gasp! the horrors!), and we really have no savings to speak of. To make matters worse, we've already booked a vacation that'll cost us roughly $3000 come November.

So...

My research led me to YNAB. Can't recall how I got here, but I did. While the software is great (will be my tool of choice), the community, methodology, and completely outlook changing philosophy has already proven invaluable. We've been using the software since the start of the month, and have thus far seen a 1.56% increase in our net worth. Small, to be sure, but I suspect that we were constantly in the negatives over the past 48 months.

Anyhow, I'll try to post regular updates here as we go. You can read about my YNAB setup here: http://wealthierandhealthier.blogspot.c ... setup.html (if links are forbidden, I apologize and feel free to remove it!).

[malisab]

I enjoyed reading your blog. Much of it sounds very familiar. I traded in Starbuck's for home brewed green tea dragged everywhere with me in a Nalgene bottle about a year ago. My husband still tries to kick the Coca-Cola habit for stretches at a time and gets dragged back in when stressful times come around.

I work in a school and that's the only place I've seen bagged milk here. We have paper cartons or plastic bottles as choices here (California). I just found that little tidbit interesting.

Good luck and welcome. I'll enjoy checking back on your progress.

[Viflux]

Thanks for the kind words!

Kicking the soda is tough...I went 2 months (January & February) before getting sucked back in when deadlines got tight at the office.

[Viflux]

After 1 month of using YNAB, we can't believe how large of an impact it's had on our lives.

We've managed to go from our typical end-of-month rush for rent money (we've been doing this for almost 5 years) to a position where we didn't need to worry about rent coming out on the 1st (or shortly thereafter); it was already budgeted and accounted for! What a wonderful feeling.

We've also managed to start an emergency fund. Although small, we stashed away $75 in an ING Savings account. It's not much, but it's definitely a start.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we've managed to make a small dent in our debt. For the first time in a *long* time, we owe less money at the end of the month than we did at the start. Yay!

All in all, July saw a 7.26% increase in our net worth. I realize that it's probably not feasible to continue at that pace, but here's hoping the ride lasts for at least another month.

[jesse]

Congrats Viflux!

I added your blog to my blogroll (http://www.youneedabudget.com/blog/) under "Bloggers Using YNAB"

Keep up the fantastic progress!

[WairereRose]

What a great start! Thanks for the update, and congratulations on that debt reduction.

[TLBauer]

Congratulations on your discovery of YNAB! It truly is a life-changing piece of software ... if you have the discipline to use it religiously! I had $30,000 in credit card and retail debt when I happened upon YNAB in Feb 2007! We've been slugging away at that debt from the first month we started using YNAB. Believe me, it CAN be done!

Next month (Sept. 2009), we pay off two more credit cards, and we'll be down to our last one! And it will be paid in full in March 2010!

So ... just keep at it! The incredible sense of freedom that YNAB has given us is absolutely PRICELESS!

Keep us posted on your progress! And if you need a little encouragement along the way, let us know!

[Viflux]

Been a while since an update, but here we are again.

When we started with YNAB, back in July of last year, we had a net worth of -$32,000, or thereabouts.

Despite dealing with the holidays, a vacation to Costa Rica that ended up costing upwards of $5,000, and my ongoing university tuition (part-time student), we've managed to reduce our debt to...


- $21,415.47 (as of this morning)


A big part of this has been staying on top of our finances on a daily basis, which allows me to give such an accurate picture. YNAB has been invaluable in this regard...neither me nor my girlfriend will enter into a purchase of more than $10 without checking with both each other and the budget. It's great!

Thanks for all the support, and I'll be back with further updates as we get closer to our goal!