YNAB You Need A Budget

[bookman413]

I started YNAB because I had started to ignore money altogether for about a year long period. Due to a workplace injury I was off for about 6 months in 2008.

Upon returning back to work, I just stopped paying attention to money altogether, because while I was off, I incurred more debt just to "survive" in the form of a personal loan.

It's interesting how the psychology of borrowing money/ getting into debt tends to do this. Maybe because it feels like the money isn't "ours" we feel we can't, or don't want to, manage its use. And because it isn't "income" it doesn't fall into the category of "stuff that we can budget" in our minds, when in fact it is possible to budget the use of that money using zero-based budgeting.

In YNAB you could set up a separate account to represent the money you got from that personal loan, then take a portion each month and allocate it as you see fit, just as you normally would with a conventional source of income. This way you are keeping an eye on your financial situation and avoiding the "well, I'm already charging it so I might as well buy this too" syndrome, minimizing and controlling the amount of debt you incur and making the most of your borrowed money

[MALMomma]

I started the grocery game in January 2009. Read on their forums about Dave Ramsey. Took Financial Peace University in July. Went on forums to GG to discuss budgeting (a huge part of the DR plan) and read about YNAB. Long story short - By the end of 2009 I was debt free except for the house! I am now buffered, Ynabed up and happier than I have ever been. It just seems like Dave Ramsey, YNAB and the Grocery Game and the trifecta of financial well being. I am one happy cupcake!!!

I used to dread opening bills, but now I am excited each time to see if I budgeted too much and can switch an extra few bucks to my next financial goal.

Cupcake? As in "I may only be a cupcake, but the GG makes me feel like one smart cookie" Cupcake? if so, HI THERE!!!

[imwired]

I'm usually not a fan of praising anyone's software or methodology, unless it's my own
But I really have to admit that YNAB is definitely an investment. And the best part is that it's at such a low cost!

I switched to YNAB because I finally realized that my spreadsheets weren't cutting it. After getting married and going from $0 debt to $32, 000+ in less than a year, it really hurt!

With YNAB, even though I've just started, it feels fantastic knowing that I'm now tracking my spending better and watching the debt go down is just an exhilarating feeling.

Jesse: you da man!

[vicki_c]

I bought YNAB after about 9 months of using iBank. Like a previous poster, I had been a LONG time MS Money user, but we had gradually transitioned to a mostly Mac household. Our PC was mainly gathering dust except for a few times a month when I sat down to pay the bills on it and I wanted something to use on the Mac. Unfortunately I picked iBank over YNAB but I had considered both. It worked, but we decided this year to get serious about budgeting. My husband was creating budgets in Excel and asking me for the data from iBank -- iBank just didn't seem to really have any workable budget features, in my experience. And when I tried to search for transactions and things to help with him with the budget, it just was getting too difficult.

So I bit the bullet and paid MORE money for YNAB last week. Wow - I'm sorry I didn't get it last year. First, it's a beautiful-looking program, and I really like the budgeting side. It seems to do just as much or more on the register side as iBank. And the on-line classes and video tutorials -- wow!

And the fact that the app is coming for the iPhone -- I'm going to be so, so happy! And hopefully in a better financial position as well if we can concentrate on budgeting for the future, vs. what we have done for years -- very accurate tracking of what we have already done (I always felt I was so on top of things just because I knew where the money went -- on a historical basis). That really hasn't worked for us, you know?

[YYC27]

I started using YNAB while I was in the process of purchasing my first home.

Previously, I just spent money when I felt like spending it. I've never been a huge spender, so I was consistantly saving each month without really trying. I knew my financial world was going to be turned upside down, and I knew that I absolutely needed to be in control. YNAB's helped me maintain that control while working towards my goals.

[cdub]

And then one day, things changed. Daughter told me she wasn't going to stay in school full time. This has some noticeable financial implications. She loses coverage on my health insurance policy because she's over 18.

Thanks to the bill that just passed - she should be able to get back on your Health Care plan now until she's 27 I believe.

[CaptainCupcake]

Why did I start using YNAB?

Quite simple: I owe two hundred and ten thousand, two hundred and two dollars and forty seven cents to someone else. Spelling it out helps drive home the enormity of the situation.

What supplies me with the willpower to hold on? If I can stick to my budget, then in less than seven years time I won't owe a single cent. Hooray!

[Jody]

In short, because my wife and I are tired of living paycheck to paycheck and want to become debt-free. We, like many who use YNAB, are also following principles espoused by Dave Ramsey. Although it's been about a year since I purchased the Pro version, we are just now starting to REALLY use it.

[brown685]

Because my wife and I committed ourselves to paying a $50,000 bill over the next 12 months, and I don't have the full amount saved. I also expect there to be some unexpected associated expenses, so I am using YNAB to help guarantee that I have the money available to make it all work out come next June.

James

[rmkoske]

Total newbie here - I've had YNAB for eight days, but I'm really excited by it.

I started using YNAB because I wanted to replace the program I was using. Up until last week, I was using Microsoft Money 2000. That's right, 2000. The program was ten years old. Believe it or not, it runs under Vista without any trouble even though I had Windows 98 when I got it, but it wants me to backup to a floppy disk.

The budget in YNAB was what sold me on it. I never used the budget feature of MSMoney - I couldn't figure out how to make it tell me what I needed to know. Instead I would lie to the check register. I would create recurring transactions to the payee "Set Aside", and use the categories to detail what they were for. So I'd pay Set Aside $20 a paycheck to the vacation category, and $20 to the new furniture category, and $20 to the new tires category, and then I'd go to a report that showed everything I'd paid to Set Aside and see where I stood. When I spent money from a category, I'd find an old Set Aside transaction and subtract the spending from it.

Needless to say, keeping up with that was exhausting, bordering on impossible. Periodically all the money would leak out and I'd have to zero them and start again. I also could never figure out how to import transactions from the bank so balancing the checkbook was overwhelming. I haven't balanced MSMoney since October of '09. We have the cash flow to get away with it, but we weren't saving ANYTHING. I suspect we were slowly eating away at the buffer we had but I wasn't sure, I constantly felt guilty about it, and it had to stop.

I've tried to replace Money in the past, and just didn't find anything that was worth the hassle of changing over, so I stuck with it. My increasing guilt and worry over not balancing my account made me decide it was time to try again before a computer upgrade broke it and I didn't have a choice.

When I mentioned looking for a replacement to my sister, she told me about YNAB (she heard about it from something connected with Dave Ramsey.) I was immediately excited. It's got saving for the future built-in? Holy cow!

I'm still in the honeymoon phase where I open it up and enter transactions and do my work (<5 minutes) and then just sort of look lovingly at the budget screen. Look, I'm saving for a new washer! I'm not utterly lost! I have a plan! Hooray! Downloading YNAB over the Independence Day weekend was actually hard for me because by Sunday morning I'd done all the data entry I could, and then there weren't any new transactions at the bank until Tuesday night. I couldn't play with it at all Sunday or Monday.

Now I can get rid of my floppy drive.

[PoundSterling]

I'm still in the honeymoon phase where I open it up and enter transactions and do my work (<5 minutes) and then just sort of look lovingly at the budget screen.

I'm exactly the same!

[tallison]

I've been using Quicken for years as a finance management tool. But never really for budgeting. Developed a bad habit of trying to figure out what we had money for based on projected balances in the near future. This got bills paid but did a poor job allocating money for anything other than the next 30-day need.

My parents, Great Depression 1.0 survivors, have used a paper ledger process. Even with Quicken, they never gave this up. Their paper process does exactly what YNAB does on the computer. Or rather, I should say that YNAB does what basic accounting has been doing for several generations. Essentially, the ability to roll-over month to month and to report rather than alarm. Other programs seem to be psychologically punishing if you blow a budget envelope. I can't give YNAB credit for new thinking but I can give it credit for a new platform for implementing a tried and true practice for accounting.

What I'm seeing as a benefit for YNAB is this: Do I have more money? Absolutely not! I don't think YNAB has that print money feature perfected just yet, but then government hates the competition. What I do have is money set aside for my wife and I to go out on a dinner date because we consciously set aside money at the beginning of the month for that. It's also bringing both of us into the process rather than just one of us carrying the burden of where the money goes. I think it's a win-win.

I'm definitely getting out of the practice of allocating expenses based on a 30-day projected balance.

I'm also sleeping better.

I've lost weight, but I don't think YNAB can take credit for that one.

[ginger]

I'm also sleeping better.

I've lost weight, but I don't think YNAB can take credit for that one.

Stress can inhibit weight loss and insufficient quality sleep promotes weight gain, so YNAB could actually take partial credit!

[shandsh]

because the method I had been using for the past few months wasn't actually getting me anywhere... I knew where my money was going but it was still going places I didn't want it to and I was getting really frustrated with spending so much personal effort towards nothing. My NY resolution this year was to get my financial house in order because I was tired of living paycheck to paycheck with no short term or long term savings. I'm nearly 38 years old and have a graduate degree in accounting. It was just inexcusable for me to continue the way I had been.

[stefer]

Because my budget needed structure. YNAB gave me that.
Oh and it's so easy to use.