You Need a Budget review after three months of use.
Sharing my You Need a Budget Review today. Are you a budget keeper or maker? I’ve made lots of budgets but only consistently kept to one once I started tracking all of my spending. It was a financial game changer. Entering each purchase has made me pause and assess if what I was buying was a need or a want and if I really wanted it and, big one, if I had the budget for it. I cannot recommend this method of tracking spending enough. If you are trying to get a clear picture of your expenses, if you’re trying to spend less, if you’re trying to pay off debt, you need a budget and you need to track your spending.
We used the opportunity of our big move back to Canada to try out another budgeting tool: the You Need a Budget app. The first budgeting app we used was called Budget and it was okay but was a bit too basic for our needs. We switched to using Home Budget three years ago on the recommendation of my sister. Home Budget is good and met most of our needs but it had syncing troubles. This is bothersome when you have two people using the app and syncing to one account.
Every month we would reconcile what our Home Budget app showed and every month we were off: my husband’s account showed different balances than mine. This became a lot of work because we would have to hunt through transactions to find duplicate entries that Home Budget had made and delete them. Often we couldn’t find them. At one point we had to delete the app, and all of our data, because it wouldn’t run on my older model iPod. Frustrating.
Could the You Need a Budget app work for two accounts?
With a new budget to make and a switch in currencies, accounts and income, it felt like the right time to try a new budgeting app. Hence why I can now share with you my You Need a Budget review.
YNAB, the You Need a Budget app, has been around for quite a few years and I’ve heard great reviews from blog readers and via other financial blogs I read. I’ve been curious about how much YNAB costs because I like free apps. Another piece is that the You Need a Budget app syncs with a Drop Box which felt onerous and complicated.
After testing running You Need a Budget I decided we should give it a go because the functionality looked great. After a bit of poking around I realized using DropBox for the database was a) not a big deal and would b) reduce or eliminate our issues with multiple accounts and incorrect transaction syncs.
YNAB has import features for credit cards and bank account transactions but we don’t use them. For us, entering the purchases is the biggest part of keeping our spending in check. YNAB also advises that people enter transactions manually because it promotes knowing your finances and spending patterns well. And knowing where your money goes is, in my experience, one of the best ways to get in the mindset of spending less.
You Need a Budget Review: the best features of the app.
The sync system for multiple devices and accounts WORKS. This is key if you have shared finances and/or budgets with a partner or you want to use YNAB on multiple devices. The sync system uses DropBox on a desktop computer to store files. Sounds confusing but once you get it installed, it’s not.
It shows your net worth. This can be a bit scary, hahaha really need to save for retirement!, but we wanted a better system for seeing our savings, hopefully, grow.
The app interface is really easy to use. I love that it remembers categories based on payee name. YNAB’s interface is far superior to the other budgeting apps I have used.
Fantastic resources on YouNeedaBudget.com. If you’re new to budgeting and/or new to the software YNAB does a lot of hand holding via their website. They have excellent start up videos and materials to help you use YNAB and get a budget running that works for you. Far superior to any of the previous budgeting apps I have used.
You Need a Budget Review: What could be better with the app.
Better mortgage function. I would like to be able to put our mortgage information in and have it update by itself. Right now we manually update it each month. But I want this function offline and not synced to a financial institution. I’m picky like that.
Option to not run a zero based budget. One of the bigger adjustments for us was setting a zero based budget. We have to account for every dollar and ‘spend’ them either on things or move to savings. In the past we set a budget that was less than our monthly income and just put whatever was left into savings each month. Because we had a lot of roll over categories we would have a cushion in our checking account but those dollars were accounted for in budgets. The You Need a Budget app is making us adjust more for spending fluctuations in categories.
How much does YNAB cost? YNAB costs $60. Pretty steep if you are coming from using free or very low priced budgeting apps. But, I think You Need a Budget’s price is justified. The app is excellent ant they have great support and resources on their website. I’ve been budgeting using an app for four years but I needed some help making the jump to the You Need a Budget App. They made it easy.
You Need a Budget Review: is it easy to set up your account?
I watched a video and read a few things on their site and I was ready to use their app. They also have a big and helpful and fun online budgeting community that you can access – highly recommend joining a YNAB forum for some hand holding/cheering/extra motivation. You can get a lot out of that $60.
We’re really happy with our $60 investment in the You Need a Budget app. This is me giving it two thumbs for anyone looking to start budgeting and get a better handle on their finances. Yes, you can do it all with pen and paper. But if like many of us, you have struggled to consistently track your finances and stick to a budget YouNeedaBudget can really help.
Any other YNABers care to weigh in on their experiences? Anyone have another budgeting method or tracking method that has worked for them?
The price totally blew me off from YNAB. I don’t want to spend money budgeting, that sounds backwards to me.
I use EveryDollar. It’s free and there is a ton of support and how-to’s! I’ve been using it along side my pen and paper ledger for quite a few years now. I’ve never lost data or had sync issues. And it’s free!
My wife and I have been YNAB users for about 2 years and LOVE it and what it has helped us do! We found ourselves putting money in savings every month, but when we reviewed our finances at the end of the year, we looked back a few years and noticed that our savings balance really had not increased. We put $$$ in at the beginning of the month and then slowly transferred back out to checking to cover spending. WHAT were we doing?
We started using YNAB and have a budget category for everything we can think of. If has allowed us to live off of last months income, build up a pretty decent buffer, build a good emergency fund, pay off our mortgage and increase our pre-tax savings at work. That means my bring home is less, but budgeting has allowed us to still have enough to cover our budget needs. Sometimes it is tight, especially the first few months of budgeting, but it does get easier. We are now occasionally running a surplus at the end of the month. What a great feeling to add to the buffer, increase savings for retirement or save for a replacement vehicle or similar.
I highly recommend YNAB! YNAB works great, they have excellent support and training for users. I think it is a fantastic product.
They are changing the cost of YNAB a bit from buy it once to an ongoing cost basis. Either way, I think YNAB is great product and can make a huge difference in your budgeting.
Final thought – YNAB is great, but if it does not look like a good fit for you, pick something else that does. There are many options for ZERO BASED BUDGETS, pick one and go with it. I think ZERO BASED BUDGETS are the key to budgeting success (for me).
I really enjoyed your blog post!
Thanks!
I never understand this budget idea. It seems to make things worse not better.
I never budget, I just buy what I need.
We did try a budget once and it made us spend more. For example, if I want to buy some clothes I buy some clothes, but when we tried to budget, we looked into our clothes budget and saw we has money to spend so spent it on new clothes , so actually were worse off as if I hadn’t seen this clothes money just sitting there I. Would never have spent it.
So I really don’t understand how budgeting saves money. All it does is allow you to spend.
I’m not being funny , its just has the reverse impact on me.
Apart from mortgage I have neveer taken a loan out in my life. I just can’t abide the idea of paying interest its lost money.
I’m interested how other people think about this.
I love YNAB! Just started using it about a month ago and I’m already trying to get everyone I know to sign up. I’ve tried my own system on google docs, cash envelopes, and Mint and none of them quite worked. Now that I’m using YNAB I can see that it’s because they aren’t “live” budgets. I love that I don’t feel guilty when I move money from one category to another like I always did in the envelopes too.
A couple things about your cons list. Just stuff I’ve learned from doing their classes and what not. So with the mortgage, YNAB isn’t mean to deal with that. They want you to just put in your accounts that you spend from, so you don’t put in things like student loans, car loans, mortgages, etc.
And for the zero based budget, here’s what I do. I put money in the categories that I think I’ll need, then the rest goes into my savings category. If it turns out that I need more money that I anticipated, I just pull it from the savings category (not from prior months, just the amount I’ve put in for this month). Then by default whatever I don’t spend ends up going into the savings. Also, anything that’s in your rainy day funds that isn’t spent ends up as “savings” that’s just earmarked to those specific categories (which you can even pull from and move later if need be).
Oh, one last thing. I won my copy for free! By taking their classes, you’re something like 1 in 40 to win a free copy. 😀
Keeping a budget has been a game changer for us as well, I am with you 100%! I tried the new Dave Ramsey app, Every Dollar, but didn’t like that you HAVE to have two pay periods per month, but my husband gets paid every two weeks, and I could adjust for that, so I canceled after the first month and went back to my old school spread sheet…it isn’t glamorous, but it works for us!
My husband and I just switched to YNAB at the beginning of this year from using Home Budget, too (and before that, good old excel). We find YNAB much more intuitive. The sync function is amazing and we love that both of us can see all the categories all the time. One hint, YNAB goes for sale at Thanksgiving/Christmas time for $15 through Steam (which is an online place to buy games). That’s how we initially tried it and we have loved it. I do wish that one could set savings goals in YNAB though and see that fill up as your goal is met. Overall, we have been very pleased with it. Every Dollar does seem similar though we had just switched to YNAB when Every Dollar came out and we didn’t want to switch unless Every Dollar was vastly better. Thanks for the review!
I love YNAB so much I’m prone to being evangelical about it. It’s AMAZING. We have lines for things we know we’re needing to buy (like a new food processor) so we research what we want, give it a line with the projected amount in the name (so it says: Food P: $325) and then budget out so when we buy it, it’s with cash. We’ve given everyone in the family allowance lines, as well. Which means I can “splurge” on me without having any guilt that it’s coming from another budgeted need. Game changer. Love it.
We need a
Budget! That’s one of the habits Id like to work on this year. Currently decluttering and meal planning! Thanks for sharing such a detailed review. I’ll checkout out as well as everydollar. Hadn’t heard of that!
We use a spreadsheet, so we can see the whole year. I have heard great things about everydollar.com, which is free, and it has a free app.
I have used YNAB for 2.5 years and LOVE it! It transformed our finances and gave us a huge reality check on where our money went. We have several small businesses and I tried to use Quicken but couldn’t get my brain wrapped around it. It’s amazing how empowering it is to be in control of your finances and know exactly where each penny is going! We have been able to plan ahead and saved for taxes, lost income, medical expenses, and many other previously “surprise” events. My husband has YNAB on his phone and he can look up “home maintenance” to see what is available to spend when he’s at Home Depot. Then when he buys something and enters it in the app, it cloud syncs with our other devices and automatically deducts that from the available balance in that category.
There is a new budgeting app that’s similar to YNAB called Every Dollar. It’s free, but they currently only have an iOS version if you want to use it on your smartphone. It does work on a Mac or PC desktop. I set it up to compare it to YNAB, and decided to stick with YNAB because YNAB allows for multiple budgets and I can export data in spreadsheets come tax time. I can’t recommend it highly enough!
🙂 🙂 🙂
I use Dave Ramsey’s Everydollar.com and have been very pleased. It’s free and easy…just what I was looking for!
Nice! Great to hear of a free and easy option.
I have been using YNAB for almost two years now and I love it! The price tag made me pause as well, but it’s really worth it. With the help of YNAB we have paid over €50000 off our mortgage in the past three years and we are no longer underwater on our home. Good to hear it’s working for your family as well!
Well done on the mortgage pay off – that is incredible! 🙂
I have been using MINT for years. It’s a free service that allows multiple device syncs, shows net worth, and has an easy to use interface. There are also a number of user forums. It also has a section to set goals for yourself and offers suggestions for money saving options (these suggestions are how the service makes money – they are paid for by the companies that it is suggesting; that is the one thing that you should look into further before making a final decision based on their recommendations). You also don’t have to do a zero based budget, but it encourages you to take the “extra” money at the end of your budget and dedicate it to one of the financial goals that you can set. It can also sync with your financial institutions so that you don’t have to fill it in manually. I used a spreadsheet before using this, but it has helped me to keep up with my net worth and see my financial goals much more clearly. I even got my husband hooked on using it after we got married!