YNAB You Need A Budget

[TCB]

In one of the threads,

When I started using YNAB in January 2008, it was my hope that I could avoid drawing down my savings.

This is the same reason that we started using YNAB. It seemed like each month, we were having to draw a little money from savings in order to pay the mortgage, etc. We didn't have credit card debt, but we were still finding it hard to make ends meet each month. We have not had to transfer money from savings since starting YNAB in October 2009, despite the fact that one of our children had to go to the emergency room and we had unexpected car repairs (my brakes failed). Thank you, YNAB!

[roxybear]

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.

I started having sleepless nights, because I didn't know when or how I was ever going to dig myself out of the financial mess that I had gotten myself into.

So, instead of taking action, I just ignored it. Used overdraft, more times than I cared to count and took money out of savings to cover shortfalls.

I found YNAB, fell in love with the 4 rules, and being a visual person I like to see things in print.

Since joining YNAB on August 27, 2009 I have paid off 3 debts and am now tackling the personal loan that I just described before. As for sleep, about a month after finding the software, I have been sleeping like a baby ever since

I have finally kicked the overdraft habit and am slowing rebuilding my savings account while attacking debt.

Earlier this week I was able to start putting money back into a retirement plan (not the same amount that I once was), but I will be able to revisit my contributions later on in the year, around April or by the summer at least.

[Patzer]

The quote in the lead post was what I hoped to get out of YNAB. The reason I started was that I decided I needed a detailed budget for the first time in my life, because of a major hit to my finances. I briefly described these changes in one of my early journal posts:

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. Until she gets a job that can cover her ongoing medical needs, I have to either cover them or provide insurance. The most cost effective insurance is COBRA, which will take care of things for at most three years. But my employer does not subsidize the premiums for daughter's COBRA as they would if she had remained a full time student.

It gets worse. Once daughter is no longer on my insurance at work, I can't run her medical expense through the Flexible Spending Account. Assuming she gets a job (which is very much to be hoped for), I lose Head of Household status and the exemption for her as a dependent in 2008. That means I need to have more income tax withheld from my paycheck. Some of that comes back from the greatly reduced FSA withholding, but it comes back less taxes. Thanks so much, Uncle Sugar.

I was looking at $800 more per month in mandatory expenses, and about $60 more per month in net pay. Overnight, I went from comfortably saving money without watching expenses very closely, to needing a budget Really Bad.

Patzer

[Trevor]

I got an email that Microsoft was bailing out of Microsoft Money so I started looking for replacement software and stumbled across YNAB. I discovered that it didn't do all the things that I thought I needed a financial program to do, but then discovered that it might be exactly what I didn't realize that I needed.

[xraymd]

Greetings, TCB, I had heard about YNAB for awhile before I thought I too should look into it. Initially I was trying out a free web-based service called MySpendingPlan.com (I *think* that was its name!) but rapidly realized it was fraught with limitations, not the least of which was that it was no longer being supported and there was no community. What do you do when you have a question and there is no one who responds? I felt like the last (wo)man on earth and got lonely, came to the Forum here to have a look and was immediately swept up into how outstandingly HELPFUL everyone has been. It is now a daily joy to come here to read, learn and share.

The reason for YNAB is that fiscally I was doing ok but dearly wanted to do BETTER, and not better just in savvy investments (and still not taking THAT plunge) but really better in my day-to-day human level money management. I wanted to lead my own money and not be led by it. I did not want to be spending without context and then discover that I'd bought $x worth of stuff that only gave me 1/10th $x of delight, or worse, 1/100th $x of it. It finally dawned on me that money mindfully tended meant creating a fuller future - if I got a grip on how much I was REALLY spending on things I was neutral about, I could make the shift towards saving for things I really relished, and that has made life that much more secure and that much more satisfying.

YNAB has done the job. I *love* to sign on. It's pretty to look at but even more so, it is POWERFUL in how it presents to me what I have done with my monthly income and how I can shape it to fit me. Savings used to be amorphous but since that's now a category (with appropriately assigned subcategories), I can see where the dollars I choose to let sit are building to. I can see that I spent comparatively more on restaurants than I did on gifts and that it is worthwhile to reapportion that. I can see that the money being targeted for a vacation is growing at the right rate, and that when I take that vacation I will enjoy it twice as much because I had it funded in full. And all this at a glance! And the best aspect is that since YNAB has steered me into living on last month's paycheck, I know I am already ready for the next month coming up and it makes it even easier to save as much as to spend, because I am not trying to squeeze every penny to pay for expenses already incurred. YNAB lets me plan and has become the financial home for my dreams, one month at a time. Now when I do spend, it feels like an act of love and I credit YNAB for creating the joy.

xraymd

[abacus2]

I found YNAB when I went looking for an alternative software when Quicken 2008 wouldn't work properly on my Windows Vista 64bit machine. I was also using Excel to budget because Quicken's budget feature is laughably bad. YNAB is the only thing I need now and it takes me less time and I have more useful information.

[Trakeveth]

I started using YNAB because I made a big lifestyle change about 18 months ago and went from being employed to being self-employed. Over the past 18 months I have been trying to figure out how to deal with my new income and expenses related to this change. I haven't done such a good job.

We used to live off of our credit card. We used to pay it off every single month without fail and wait for those cash back checks to arrive in the mail (the cash back reward was the only reason we lived off of the credit card). Out of habit, we continued to use the credit card for all purchases after my job change....except we couldn't pay it off every single month so the balance began to grow.

About a year ago, I realized that we could no longer live off of credit or we would get ourselves into really big trouble so I told my husband to stop using the credit card and start using the debit card (neither of us are used to carrying cash because that is not the way we used to do things). Since then, the credit card balance stopped growing, but it is not necessarily going down either because we still weren't tracking/curbing our spending or budgeting our money, so at the end of the month when I had one last bill to pay, what had already been spent was gone and I couldn't get it back. The only way to pay the bill was to dip into savings.

Last month I panicked when I saw that our savings (though not much to begin with) had dwindled down to practically nothing. That's when I said to myself "You Need a Budget!"

Now I have a renewed outlook. No more living on plastic cards. No more dipping into savings. Every expense planned for, no matter how far off into the distance it is. I feel like there is a light at the end of the tunnel and that gives me peace of mind.

[rollercoaster]

I started YNAB, because I had made several failed attempts at doing a budget on paper. I'd dutifully sit down, figure out how much was coming in vs. how much was going out for the the month, then promptly ignore it for the rest of the month and not keep track of our spending.

I found YNAB when reading a personal finance blog and a couple commenters recommended YNAB. December 2009 I googled it, read about it, saw all the hype about YNAB3, downloaded the trial of Pro about a week before Christmas, and played with it then decided to wait to purchase after Christmas (because I wasn't living on a budget and needed to make sure I had Christmas covered first).

I love it. I've "found" money to snowball toward debt payments using the zero-based budget and actually make the payments. Prior to YNAB, the plan was always to just pay whatever we had left at the end of the pay period when the next paycheck came in, but that never seemed to happen. Remaining balances would just roll over and get swallowed up in the cycle of 'there's money in the account, we can afford to buy it'.

My only wish ~ I wish I'd found YNAB sooner!!

[lautzu]

I have been a long-time Mac user and one-time devotee of Quicken. Over the years, Quicken for Mac got worse and worse, and it was at the same time that I became more and more interested in budgeting. The more I explored the budget feature in Quicken, the more frustrated I became, mostly because I could never make it work - it wasn't even clear to me what was income and what was expenses. In any event, I got tired of Quicken, and when my computer crashed I decided not to go back to it. I trialed a lot of things and settled on iBank. Decent application, Mac native and all that, but I realized the budget wasn't working any better for me. I hadn't put my finger on it 100% yet, but what was troubling was that the budget, like the budet feature on all personal finance apps, wasn't flexible in the least - at best it was a guess about what I might spend in an average month. I realized the the budgets I had been using weren't tools at all, weren't providing me any sort of leverage. Along the way I played with a few other envelope-like budgeting apps, but for the most part found them, for lack of a better word, clunky. And so it came down to YNAB, which I had initially ignored, being the Mac-snob that I am...but the more I read about the rules and read on these forums (well before I officially "joined), I knew that YNAB might be what I was looking for...and I wish that I had found it years earlier!

(I'v never been a journal-er, but often thought of starting, and I may paste this post into the start of one - thanks for getting me to think about this!)

[JeffS]

I started YNAB because I was wanted a paradigm shift from my previous financial software (always looking into the review mirror). During my search I tried several online and desk tops but always found the same results. In December 2009, I stumble upon YNAB review. The review was fantastic so I searched for more reviews that repeated the same high recommendations. I decided to switch and will not turn back. Now I am seeing the excellent results by living the 4 rules of YNAB.

PS: Please watch “Whiteboard Wednesday - by YNAB” to learn valuable tips.

http://www.youneedabudget.com/c/whiteboard-wednesday/

[grant]

I stumbled across YNAB after reading a positive review on another forum about good budgeting programs for the Mac. I was looking for something similar to Simply Budgets (a PC budgeting program), but wanted to take it a step further so I could track how much I was actually spending in each category without having to resort to complex programs like Quicken. YNAB is fitting the bill perfectly.

For the first time ever, I can tell anybody exactly where all of my cash is and where it's going, including the shrapnel I throw into a jar. I'm also starting to make headway on my debts.

It's a simple, elegant program that's finally given me the willpower to take control of my finances.

[Sparkling Chaos]

I probably have one of the more interesting reasons to start using YNAB. I just passed the US State Department's Foreign Service exam and as a result, I pulled all of my credit reports and started evaluating my financial health. If I pass the Oral Exam for the Foreign Service, there is a Top Secret security investigation. One of the major reasons for denials of clearance are financial irresponsibility, delinquent debts, etc.

I needed to get my financial house in order immediately and not wait until it's time for my clearance investigation. If all goes well, I could be starting the clearance process in six months, so I needed a system to both ensure that my financial problems are under control (i.e. a disciplined repayment plan.) I also need a system to prove to the investigators that I am responsible financially, I live within my means and I've atoned for my past financial sins (primarily due to extended periods of under and unemployment.) YNAB is great (so far,) not only because of the obvious features, but also because I can print out a copy of my spending habits and budget and bank accounts for the preceding six month period to show exactly where my money goes and that I've learned my lesson from previous excursions into fiscal irresponsibility.

Now if only the government would start using YNAB -- we'd all be better off!

[MrsKFerg]

I started YNAB because close to a year ago we decied that after school we wanted to buy a house and possibly move to another state. Well, we started attacking debt and seemed ok but the savings never really grew. There was always a lump sum in when we'd remember but then something would happen and a bigger sum out. After looking at the other programs that run on a Mac, YNAB seemed to had worked out everyhthing going on in my head and random spreadsheets. It's only been 3 weeks but now I can explain to DH why we cant get X,Y, Z even though there's money in the bank. We have a plan which makes me feel so much better ....

Happy Budgeting Everyone!

KFerg

[MALMomma]

I can't remember when I first heard about YNAB. I do remember searching for budget software and coming across YNAB Basic. I'm pretty sure I did a trial - can't remember, it's been so long. I thought it was just "ok" and figured I could do something similar to it on my own. (haha) We didn't really get serious about a budget at that time, though, so it was forgotten about. I had used Quicken and Money - both programs had terrible budget features, so never really used them at all. We ended up looking backwards at what we spent instead of planning what we would spend.

By August 2008, the stars were aligned, the planets singing gloriously, and the sun was shiny & bright. I came across YNAB yet again and this time, did the trial for Pro. I had to work on DH a little bit (that Rule 1 being such a different philosophy than what we were used to), but he figured as long as it would help us stay on a budget, all would be fine.

The big draw for YNAB wasn't just the tool. Pro was fantastic and really allowed a clear pictures of our finances. It helped us think differently. But really, it was the community. Honestly, can you go to Quicken or Money's forums (do they have any?) and actually talk to *gasp* the OWNER? The PROGRAMMER? Uh, yeah, sure you can. In fantasy world. But here, Jesse and Taylor visit the forum and try to help where & when they can. They have contact with their end user. They have *gasp* respect for their end user. They *gasp* want the best for their end user. And then we have all of us "end users", sharing our triumphs, our challenges, giving & receiving advice. This forum is one of the best places to come to on the web. There is always something new to be learned.

Great software + great people = BIG WIN

[cupcake]

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.