You need a budget (YNAB) advice thread

hiddenshadow

Some people on the YNAB forums have said that Natwest can connect, but officially it's not supported (the bank connection provider only supports US/Canadian banks, and not all of those).

Unfortunately I think it's down to luck whether your bank account will connect to YNAB, as they don't officially support non-North American banks (and, as far as I know, have no plans to do so in the future).

bobobski

Why would you want to link bank accounts?

When someone hacked my Natwest account, they only refunded me the money on the basis that I had not given my login details to anybody else. Why risk losing that security?

Also, you only need to look at your bank balance for YNAB purposes for reconcilation - the whole point is that the budget is separate from your bank balance (which "lies"). And reconciliation takes two minutes a week and you should be logging into your bank at least that often anyway to make sure everything's ok in there.

So... why try to link?

jujudrops

i've looked at lots of budget tools and like this best but i have a windows phone and kindle, can i download the app and how?
tia
ju

hiddenshadow

Probably not. There is no windows phone app (though you might be able to view the browser version? worth a shot). I don't think the browser version works in IE, so I highly doubt it will work on Kindle.

BrandNewStart

Thanks - I think I need to understand YNAB better!

jujudrops

hiddenshadow wrote: »

Probably not. There is no windows phone app (though you might be able to view the browser version? worth a shot). I don't think the browser version works in IE, so I highly doubt it will work on Kindle.

thanks for the reply, seems you're right, will see how it goes on the desktop over the next month, then have a rethink.....:)

lazer-zxr

YNAB has been a massive tool for me over the last 11 months. It has helped me restructure my finances, learn valueable principles, and help me cope with my lightbulb moment through to my current state, (25% paid off 51k).

But today, I have started my move away from YNAB.

Why?
I'm on a student version (free), and intended to purchase the full $60 version in July when my student status runs out. This I saw as a great investment.

I don't want to pay $60 for a product that will soon be unsupported.

The principle behind my debt free journey, has been to minimise regular outgoings. The new YNAB price structure doesn't fit with my strategy. I wouldn't have minded a one off $60 outlay as it has a finality about it, however a perpetual $5 (or discounted value) ... I do my utmost to reduce the smallest regular outgoing.

My alternative.
I've used a Google spreadsheet to recreate the YNAB budget screen, together with balance accounts down the left, and income / expense in the main area. Months along the top with three columns for each month (budgeted / actual / balance) and an available to budget green or pink number at the top.... it all works really well and is recognisable as the YNAB budget screen.

I have also recreated the net worth report, with bar charts and line graph. Looks better than YNAB one ;p

There is myself and my wife who use YNAB on mobile devices. This is where it becomes a little less convenient. With a "GoodBudget" account, and the apps on both both phones, I've setup 10 envelopes to act as monthly budget envelopes. It appears to work really well so far.
The inconvenience comes from manually updating my excel sheet, with the data from the "GoodBudget" account. No hardship, as I find myself with spare minutes at work to do this.

Conclusion: I can apply the principles, layout, approach and transactions as I did with YNAB. There's a little more manual intervention, and the proof will be in the pudding when used full time. At the moment, I've run January on both YNAB and the new system, and will do the same in Feb, with the view that in March, I'll stop using YNAB.

Any thoughts from my fellow YNABers welcome.

January2015

lazer-zxr wrote: »

YNAB has been a massive tool for me over the last 11 months. It has helped me restructure my finances, learn valueable principles, and help me cope with my lightbulb moment through to my current state, (25% paid off 51k).

But today, I have started my move away from YNAB.

Why?
I'm on a student version (free), and intended to purchase the full $60 version in July when my student status runs out. This I saw as a great investment.

I don't want to pay $60 for a product that will soon be unsupported.

The principle behind my debt free journey, has been to minimise regular outgoings. The new YNAB price structure doesn't fit with my strategy. I wouldn't have minded a one off $60 outlay as it has a finality about it, however a perpetual $5 (or discounted value) ... I do my utmost to reduce the smallest regular outgoing.

My alternative.
I've used a Google spreadsheet to recreate the YNAB budget screen, together with balance accounts down the left, and income / expense in the main area. Months along the top with three columns for each month (budgeted / actual / balance) and an available to budget green or pink number at the top.... it all works really well and is recognisable as the YNAB budget screen.

I have also recreated the net worth report, with bar charts and line graph. Looks better than YNAB one ;p

There is myself and my wife who use YNAB on mobile devices. This is where it becomes a little less convenient. With a "GoodBudget" account, and the apps on both both phones, I've setup 10 envelopes to act as monthly budget envelopes. It appears to work really well so far.
The inconvenience comes from manually updating my excel sheet, with the data from the "GoodBudget" account. No hardship, as I find myself with spare minutes at work to do this.

Conclusion: I can apply the principles, layout, approach and transactions as I did with YNAB. There's a little more manual intervention, and the proof will be in the pudding when used full time. At the moment, I've run January on both YNAB and the new system, and will do the same in Feb, with the view that in March, I'll stop using YNAB.

Any thoughts from my fellow YNABers welcome.

I was on a student licence, but decided last week to buy YNAB4 because I didn't want to be forced to move to a subscription based version. YNAB sent me a discount link to purchase a licence at 25% reduction. I clicked on that and bought it. After converting from US Dollars, the final cost to me was £32.23.

I think it is worth every penny of that. Why don't you email YNAB and ask if you can buy a full licence for the classic YNAB4 with the usual 25% discount offered to students?

It's got to be worth a try. They are clearly still selling licences for the classic YNAB as I got one just last week. As regards to the product being unsupported - they still support the basic spreadsheets they started out selling. So whilst it may not be the latest version, I suspect support will still be available.

Pinkwhisk

Hi,

I have YNAB4 on laptop and mobile app. On PC I've done Feb's budget. How can I look at this on the app or is it impossible?
Thanks

hiddenshadow

You can't see the budget on the mobile app for YNAB4 unless you're on a tablet.