YNAB - good or bad

bilko89

kindofagilr wrote: »

Thank you, I will give that a try, I have a spreadsheet set up for years so I do know my totals etc, but it will definitely de-motivate me if it's a red figure every time I go in lol

I was hoping to use YNAB as a day to day thing to curb my spending as it has gone a bit lost along my debt way iyswim



I think that is what's getting me, I've been a spreadsheeter for years, and as soon as my statements come in I amend the sheet to know what I am going to have for the coming month, I am not sure I am going to be able to change my mindset xx

Glad it wasn't only me! I suppose I'll see how it goes when I do get paid, and will report back here.

kindofagilr

bilko89 wrote: »

Glad it wasn't only me! I suppose I'll see how it goes when I do get paid, and will report back here.

I hope it works out for you (and me)

redmel1621

I think I will give it another go. I see others also tried it numerous times before actually 'getting' it, so maybe I will eventually

Willing2Learn

To all of you giving it another go. It is hard to change your way of thinking at first. It was only on my fourth or fifth attempt at starting a new budget that I finally got to grips with it.

It is hard not looking at your bank account or credit card balances before making a purchase. But eventually you get used to looking at your budget category to work out if you can afford something.

The other difficult thing was the way it handles credit cards. It took a lot of toing and froing with the support team before I was happy. It is hard to understand that every card transaction counts as a debt increasing. But it comes back down to not worrying about account balances, when instead I should be focusing on budget categories, and how much money available I have in any applicable budget category.

Eventually, I became confident enough to give advice to people on their support forums...and the rest is history. It was the biggest thing on my journey to becoming debt-free...

redmel1621

Willing2Learn wrote: »

To all of you giving it another go. It is hard to change your way of thinking at first. It was only on my fourth or fifth attempt at starting a new budget that I finally got to grips with it.

It is hard not looking at your bank account or credit card balances before making a purchase. But eventually you get used to looking at your budget category to work out if you can afford something.

The other difficult thing was the way it handles credit cards. It took a lot of toing and froing with the support team before I was happy. It is hard to understand that every card transaction counts as a debt increasing. But it comes back down to not worrying about account balances, when instead I should be focusing on budget categories, and how much money available I have in any applicable budget category.

Eventually, I became confident enough to give advice to people on their support forums...and the rest is history. It was the biggest thing on my journey to becoming debt-free...

Can you share an account? I'm not sure it will be much use to me if dh can't look at it aswell. He won't be able to phone me during the day to check if he is ok to buy a KFC or whatever. Is there a way around this? Is it just a case of telling your partner each day how much is in the relevant categories and hoping they remember?

Willing2Learn

Multiple users can share the same login credentials. You’re able to create multiple budgets for a single login.


https://www.youneedabudget.com/our-controversial-stance-on-joint-accounts/

redmel1621

Willing2Learn wrote: »

Multiple users can share the same login credentials. You’re able to create multiple budgets for a single login.


https://www.youneedabudget.com/our-controversial-stance-on-joint-accounts/

Brilliant thank you.

DD265

I've been using YNAB4 for a couple of years and get on really well with it. Based on January2015's reasoning quoted in this thread I'm currently trialing nYNAB and really rating it so far - started on Wednesday night.

I'll admit it shook me up when I migrated my budget and had £46k to budget with (the number was 0 in YNAB4!) - plus massive negatives on the debt accounts - then eventually after a fair bit of googling I sussed it out and matched the 'to budget' to my historical transactions. Stayed up past midnight working all that out.

I did try the credit cards as tracking accounts but now that I've figured it out, I'm happy with them in the budget. I'm now looking at some of my other accounts trying to work out whether I want to move them into the budget or continue to keep them separate. I might see if there's a way to duplicate the budget so I can have a play around!

kateyliz

I've been using YNAB4 for 4 years and love it. I often think about moving across to the cloud one, but unsure, so will be interested to hear how you get on

tempus_fugit

Another vote for YNAB.