By the fifteenth, I am putting money in for the next month. I really love YNAB. Maybe it came from the money you had set aside for a nice vacation.
You only budget the money you actually have, instead of (as with Quicken) guessing how much you’re going to spend and then comparing those totals with what you think your income will be. I used to try to budget out a whole year in Quicken, but with YNAB, I just budget out each month as I go (being sure to include things like $100/month for that $300 payment that only comes due once a quarter). I could never get all the numbers from all the accounts to match up. I could never grasp where my money was or where it was going. Yes, you *could* do a lot of this with Excel or even paper & pencil, but the software is super easy to use and really speeds things up. It has made it a lot easier for me to stay on plan.
The software does have learning curve to it, but I think that if you invest the time it takes to get up to speed on it, and to improve your financial self-control, you will be glad you did. If you are after financial freedom (and not by winning the lottery!) then this program is highly recommended. This software is great in managing/budgeting your expenses. The only bad thing is the amount of work that you have to put in (recording). Before, I would have to create a budget spreadsheet, then worry about fitting the figures into Quicken, then try to balance my quicken account without any errors. It became time consuming and frustrating to keep up with.
I’ve been looking for a good financial program for years. I’ve attempted MS Money but it just didn’t cut it.
I don’t want it to lose its focus on budgeting, and I don’t want it to become as bloated as Quicken, but there are more features that could be added to let people use it as all-in-one software and get rid of software like Quicken completely. It would be nice if I could select a payee and see every single transaction I’ve made to them and how much money I’ve spent at McDonald’s in the last 4 months (you can already do this by category, just not by payee). I think it’s a great program, with solid concepts. It almost feels like it’s been programmed in (god forbid) Visual Basic or something. I am also doing Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University program and just this month have become debt-free except for the house. Last month on the DR forums I read about YNAB and how many DR followers use it. It is easy to use, and does things in an intuitive way, so you know what to do next. You don’t have to be a financial genius to use it. Whether you are in debt or not, GIVE YNAB A TRY! I think you won’t be disappointed (especially if you’re a frustrated Quicken user)! Recently they held *free* online webinars to customers on how to use various features from simple concepts to advanced concepts. Now, who has ever seen that?
How would we get by? Landscaping Blocks.
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