First house, first real budget

pandastyle_3

My partner and I recently bought our first home together and with all of the new changes that have come in with regards to mortgages, we want to make sure that we are able to remortgage when the time comes.

Since we moved in just before Christmas, we have opened a joint house account and make sure that all bills come out of there. We have kept our own personal accounts and when we get paid, transfer a set amount to the joint account each payday. This has been working well for the past six months but now we are trying to get a hold of our finances a bit more and not living paycheck to paycheck.

Our first step on this journey involves buying You Need a Budget. I've heard nothing but good things about this and intend to sit down today and go through the instructional videos and try to get to grips with it! As July is one of our busiest months (lots of weddings, birthdays, holiday etc!) I'm really looking forward to planning for things like my car insurance renewal and MOT in December and not be worrying that I will be broke at Christmas!

Has anyone ever used YNAB? Has it changed the way you think about money?