You Need A Budget

FireWyrm

*Dee* wrote: »

Can you still use it when the trial runs out?

No. The software will tell you that your trial period is over and ask you to pay.

hohum

Willowpop wrote: »

I'm kinda jealous. I signed up for the free trial after hearing people rave about it....but couldn't get my head around it at all. I just couldn't work it out.
I have now found a spread sheet and that seems to be working fine , but I feel all left out!!
Enjoy YNAB, lots of folk speak very highly of it.

It's definitely more a system than just a software budget, not everyone will got on with it! It seems pretty much like envelope budgeting/ piggy banking, with a couple of notable additions eg having one months income as a 'buffer' so you are always one month ahead in terms of allocating income.

The other thing that took me a while to figure out is that it's not really about forecasting, you'd need to do that separately. For me this is really good as I can't start mentally spending money we don't have. Plus with a variable income it's actually really helpful to only enter what we actually have in our hot little hands

I had a browse of the forums, signed up to the emails and did the introductory free webinar. There were a couple of tips in the webinar that were really useful.

blisteringblue

I love this software and it's well worth the money. If I'd found out about proper budgets 20 years ago I would be retired by now

Anybody thinking about buying the full product I can send you a referral link that will save you 10% on the purchase price. Just send me a PM and I will send it over to you.

Cheers

BB

:T

StressedSteph

YNAB is AMAZING!!!!
I have been on and off this site since 2007 trying to kill off my debt with very little success.
I signed up for YNAB in January and as you can see from my signature I have killed off nearly a quarter of my debt already.


YNAB teaches you to check your BUDGET to see if you can afford things rather than checking your Bank Statement. Just because you have money in the bank doesn't mean you can necessarily afford to buy x, y or z.


We get a weekly wage and I was puzzled for a while on how to lay out the budget in YNAB for weekly pay.
I watched al their video tutorials and search their forum and they answered it perfectly. All I need to do is lay out my budget with WEEK 1, WEEK 2 etc and put bills coming out in those weeks in sub-categories.


It truly is an EXCEL spreadsheet on Steroids as a pp stated.


I got my YNAB copy through the MAC website, it was greatly reduced and I have a Windows Pc and it worked perfectly. Definitely spend your trials period searching around, there are lots of YNAB bargains to be found.


Good luck

azlan

Students can get a free annual subscription for as long as they are at college http://www.youneedabudget.com/blog/2014/ynab-is-now-free-for-college-students/ You don't need to be a full time student - I've just got my copy and hope it will change my finances!!!

AFK_Matrix

I'll add my Yell of HELL YES to the others lol.

I think I heard of YNAB on here actually and went to investigate and got the trial. I wasn't in debt as such and had 1500 sitting in the bank but I always panicked when the CC bill came in and never saved up for things like Car Insurance so paid more by having to go the direct debit route.

So as others I happily setup my budget accounting for all expenses for that month and then promptly found that didn't work as I wasn't following the 4 YNAB rules. Watched a couple of videos and went to 2 webinars which are all free btw and bam the light bulb went off and since June last year I have followed the YNAB method and have gone from that 1500 to having over 10k in the bank, paid off a 0% CC and am half way to paying back 6k I owe my dad. I have all of my Car, House etc insurance amounts building up so that when they are due I can go and pay them in one lump sum thus saving money.

It is hard to get your head around the methodology of YNAB and a lot of people want to forecast which YNAB isn't really built for but you can kind of do it, I haven't felt the need at all though. Stick with it and use the forums as the people there are ace and all the free support information is amazing.

FireWyrm

AFK_Matrix wrote: »

It is hard to get your head around the methodology of YNAB and a lot of people want to forecast which YNAB isn't really built for but you can kind of do it, I haven't felt the need at all though. Stick with it and use the forums as the people there are ace and all the free support information is amazing.

You can forecast easily by adding un-cleared transactions for the coming months to represent income. I have done so until December. When I actually get paid, I categorise that income in the correct month and delete the 'fantasy' income transaction - effectively swapping the placeholder for a real transaction. I have forecast the budget right up to the end of the year this way although it isnt rigid. I know it might have to change, but as ballpark figures, it works well. Using other tools like the snowballer I can then figure out and apply values to the correct categories to pay off the debts.

Some kind soul on the YNAB forum actually invented a spreadsheet to analyse your budget using YNAB exported data that works really well. You can get that here : http://forum.youneedabudget.com/discussion/29898/the-excel-sheet-to-rule-them-all

Just export your budget sheet as CSV, copy the contents and paste it cold into cell A1 on the first sheet and the excel sheet does the rest. Voila...instant graphs.

ganderson1804

Can you use YNAB if you already have a piggy bank system in place? My husband has finally come around to how our money works but we have a spreadsheet and i keep it on my work computer - something he could have on his smartphone would be brilliant.

Can you only have the software on one system? Like if i put it on my work computer and set it all up, can i see it on my laptop at home too if i need to change / add anything?

blisteringblue

Yes you can, it uses Cloudsync via dropbox, so as long as your work computer has access to this you should be fine (some corporate networks may block this though). Just check their licencing though.

http://www.youneedabudget.com/support/article/install-ynab-on-multiple-computers

dreamdreamer

I trialled it last year but whilst I was initially wowed I just couldn't get along with it. The main issue for me was that you HAD to run your "budget month" from the 1st to the 1st. I get paid on the 25th but most of my bills go out on the 1st. It was doing my nut in that for the first 25 days of each calendar month everything was 'red' because it couldn't recognise my income from the 25th of the previous month was funding the transactions.

Also because my pay varies depending on overtime most of my May spending would be dependent on my 25th April pay, not my 25th May pay, but because the month runs 1st to 1st it would use my 25th May pay to work out deficits and surplusses and would show these where there really weren't any. I read all the stuff about why when you're properly budgeting it doesn't matter when your month starts, and I tried for 3 months to adjust to it, but I just couldn't. It did my head in, it was such a messy way to try and run a budget.

I ended up reverting back to my trusty spreadsheets. But if they ever allow you to define your rolling month I'll be getting it for sure.