If you’re shopping for a personal budget software application for your desktop, YNAB or “You Need A Budget”, is something to strongly consider.
You Need A Budget (YNAB) Comes With Freebies, Bonus Tools!
YNAB or You Need A Budget is a personal budgeting software application that is an awesome alternative to Quicken. It’s a highly rated money management desktop application that helps you with tracking your expenses, budgeting, and eliminating your debts. It has roots in Excel, and is based on a forward-thinking savings and debt reduction paradigm that you’re not bound to see in many other budgeting tools. You can pick it up here along with bonus freebies — details below.
For those interested in purchasing YNAB, you can do so through this link. You’ll get a lot of bonus items with your purchase, including free money management tools (add-ons) and the ebook “The YNAB Way”. Here are the items you’ll get for free with your purchase of YNAB Basic ($24.95) or YNAB Pro ($49.95).
Free Bonus Items With Your YNAB Purchase
- The YNAB Way eBook discusses the YNAB approach to saving and budgeting. The YNAB methodology is a new savings paradigm that helps you reduce your debts and build your savings faster.
- The YNAB Debt Snowball is an add-on to the YNAB Budgeting system. It’s a spreadsheet that helps you get rid of your debt quickly.
- The YNAB 2008 Income Tax Forecaster helps estimate your 2008 taxes.
- The YNAB Retirement Planner guides you through making smart investing decisions.
- The YNAB Mortgage Analyzer shows you how quickly you’ll be able to retire your mortgage, under different scenarios.
- The YNAB Car Maintenance Schedule helps you keep track of your car maintenance checks, thereby helping you save money on your vehicle in the long run.
You can order here, or for more on YNAB, please check out my personal review of this product below.
My Musings On Personal Budget Software
In the semi-crowded field of money management and budgeting tools, You Need A Budget is one of those applications that I found interesting for a few reasons.
- I am not big on checkbook balancing — I am very lazy when it comes to this task.
- I don’t budget much. I get a big picture snapshot and work with loose parameters. But with lowered incomes in recent years, we could use a better budgeting approach!
- I use my own customized money management system using everyone’s favorite spreadsheet, Excel. I built it myself, hairy formulas and all!
- I am paranoid about security. The safety of my money away from prying eyes and potential hackers is paramount to me — not that this hasn’t been addressed to some degree by online money management tools already. Still, with online tools, your info remains in someone else’s server.
- I don’t like complicated applications dripping with bells and whistles that I don’t need. If the application is too heavyweight, then I may not use it for long.
- I have variable income. Now that I’m self-employed, my income is fairly erratic.
- I do my family’s finances mostly, but I’d like for me and my spouse to have the same easy access to our financial information.
And so it would come naturally to me to be interested in a product that may — on the surface — look like it may actually fit my particular needs. In the interest of disclosure, I already own Quicken though I like using my familiar self-generated spreadsheets for most of my money management work. I’ve also tried Mint for a bit and found it quite helpful, though I’ve only got it linked to a few of my accounts. As it is, I’m continually on the prowl for financial planning and expense tracking applications that have effective “paradigms” and offer efficient approaches.
YNAB (You Need A Budget) Features
Here are a few things about the YNAB application:
Jesse Mecham is the guy behind YNAB. Just like me (and many of you!), he worked with Excel spreadsheets to manage his finances. Eventually, that Excel spreadsheet evolved into today’s YNAB.
The goal of You Need A Budget is to change the way you manage your money by enforcing a strategy or methodology that’s supported by the software. By using the software, you’ll be compelled to change the way you handle your money by following these few rules:
Rule #1: Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck
This rule introduces the concept of living on last month’s income, which enforces a more proactive and forward thinking approach to budgeting. It’ll force you to create a savings buffer to allow you to promote your current month’s income for use in the next month. Your future budget is therefore based on reality, not on an estimate! The benefits include:
- allowing variable income budgeting to occur more smoothly
- “forcing” you to save up for a money buffer that gives you breathing room to pay for potential unexpected expenses
- enabling you to pay for your bills as they come in, without surprises!
As far as I know, other well-known software applications aren’t built to support this approach. Instead, they take snapshots of past spending and have you make estimations of your future budget.
Rule #2: Give Every Dollar a Job
The goal when setting up a budget in YNAB is to have nothing leftover. Every penny should be allocated to one category or another, whether it be for major expenses, infrequent expenses or even a savings or emergency fund.
Rule #3: Prepare for Rain
YNAB lets you budget money for “rainy day” categories, those infrequent expenditures like property taxes, insurance premiums, etc, so that you’re ready for anything. This is especially helpful with building your emergency fund!
Rule #4: Roll with the Punches
If you ever overspend, YNAB’s forward planning system won’t let you get away with it. It will make the necessary adjustments to next month’s budget so that your overspending can be acknowledged. At the same time, it does this in such a way that you’re able to absorb the adjustments easily. I find this feature awesome! As Mechem puts it, “it keeps you honest”.
The result is that you’ll soon find yourself able to pay cash on your purchases (instead of resorting to credit), to live below your means, and to have the ability to share financial information with others in your household (e.g. your spouse or partner).
YNAB and YNAB Pro, Plus Bonus Tools
YNAB is now available in two formats. The original software, called YNAB Basic, remains Excel-based, and is available for download from the YNAB website for $24.95. YNAB Pro is an enhanced, Windows-based version that is available in either soft or hard copy. You’ll get it for $49.95. You’ll also get the methodology book “The YNAB Way” as well as five bonus tools available (the most helpful one to me is the Debt Snowball add-on) that you’ll receive if you purchase either one of these packages.
Other positive points?
- Check it’s awesome ratings on Amazon. It blows Quicken out of the water.
- You actually don’t need to have prior experience of Excel.
- They don’t charge for upgrades (unlike Quicken or other products).
- They have a 60-day money back guarantee.
- The claim that the average YNAB user pays off $500 in debt and saves $235 in the first 31 days of use.
- YNAB.com, the comprehensive web site dedicated to the product, is chockful of information including tutorials, user forums and online community, free coaching classes (via webinars), a Quick Start Guide, a User Manual, a blog, an e-course, you name it. They’ve also got support via email.
YNAB doesn’t come across to me like another Quicken or Microsoft Money because it goes beyond being a money management tool. It also strongly promotes a methodology for true saving. They even have a book called “The YNAB Way” which explains the methodology in more detail.
If you want to control your money, instead of just track it, this thing is an awesome tool for the job. But you’ll have to use it as intended.
If you want to continue checking out other software packages, check out our list of personal financial software.
- Stock trades: Free stock trades from Zecco, Cheap stock trades from TradeKing, Stock news and Investment info at INO TV Free, No cost Trend Analysis for stocks
- Earn top returns: FNBO Direct [1.90%], HSBC Direct [1.65%], WTDirect [1.76%], E*Trade Bank [0.95%], ING Direct [.25% to 1.65%]
- Cash bonus: Discover More [$50], American Express [$25], Lending Club [$25]
If you enjoyed this post, you can get free regular updates through our RSS Feed, or you can have our latest posts delivered to your email inbox by supplying your address here. Your address will only be used for this purpose, and you can unsubscribe anytime.
{ 6 trackbacks }
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
have you ever heard of mint.com? its free. and does a way better job than this software that costs money. i thought we were trying to save.
Yes, I worked for Mint.com actually (not so long ago). I think that YNAB may work for some people; it may not work for others. It depends on what you are looking for. The software is based on a different paradigm in budgeting. I have a Mint account and it’s pretty cool — I have some accounts downloading automatically into my Mint account, though I want to keep most of my info on my desktop. I actually believe that the demographic who uses online financial tools is different from those who use desktop tools.
I wrote about Mint and Wesabe too, if you’re interested in reading more about browser-based tools.
I’m equal opportunity here. I like reviewing all tools and seeing how well each one works. I like YNAB because it’s different and based on this “forward thinking” concept. I took the time to study its features and I liked what I saw.
YNAB is best for those who already prefer to use desktop software. If you have MSN Money or Quicken, and are in the process of shifting gears, this software could be a consideration. It’s unlikely that a Quicken-head would want to switch to Mint.com (despite it being free). And if you love Mint, it’ll be harder for you to appreciate the Quickens of the world.
I’m not going to say that one is superior to another, as I go by “different strokes for different folks”.
There’s no chance I’m going to use a web service to aggregate my financial information and suggest improvements. I just don’t trust external services enough to give them the “keys to the kingdom”. Mint.com desktop edition might be a possibility as long as I’d be assured that my financial information wasn’t leaving the house. So YNAB sounds interesting since Quicken is really showing its age, especially on the Mac.
I use a scratch pad - it’s cheaper!
Mint.com does not have access to any (3) of the banks my accounts are in. So to me it is worthless.
I’ve yet to find budget software that equals my really simple excel spreadsheet. I have my own system that works well for me but when I try to mimic it with quicken or money, it becomes overly complicated.
I am also very fond of my Excel spreadsheets, but I have been trying Quicken of late. The thing about personal finance software is that many of us have developed our own “ways” of doing things and so it may be a challenge to switch to a different system. Though I think that those who are looking for a “fresh start” or really want to get a serious handle on their finances may find that getting new software can signal a commitment to change.
In my case, my status has changed from employee to business owner, and as mentioned, my earnings are all over the place. Same with my husband’s. So we need something that offers the flexibility to handle variable income. An Excel type application would help in that regard (as the one I developed for us to use).
That’s an interesting software package.
What about Thrive (www.justthrive.com)? Our service is free and is designed to be empower users by simplifying financial planning. We crunch all the numbers and categorize your spending for you, so that you can easily track how you spend your money. We also help you keep spending targets and help you to plan for the future.
And our service is completely free. Founded on the principal that all people deserve free and accurate, personal financial advice.
We would love to hear your thoughts on our company.
Best,
Elisa@Thrive
Thanks for the info, Elisa! I haven’t checked out your tool yet, but I should carve out some time to do that. I’m curious to find out how different your service is from Mint or Wesabe.
Looks like a very interesting software package. It looks like an especially good one for those who use and prefer financial desktop software.
Using something is better than using nothing.
The majority of people don’t even budget and they wonder why they’re in so much financial trouble.
Thanks for the code, very useful for me
I’ve been using YNAB Pro for a year or so now and I wouldn’t go back. While looking around for a budgeting program, it surprised me how many backwards-looking programs there were. I was looking for a budgeting program, not a reactionary program and that’s exactly what I found in YNAB Pro.
If you’re looking for forward-looking budgeting software to keep your finances in order, I think YNAB Pro could be for you. Well worth the $50 (and even better w/ 10% off). Just my 2 cents.
Zebov,
Thanks for the vote of confidence for YNAB. That’s what stood out for me with this budgeting package — the forward-thinking that is ingrained in the tool itself allows you to develop better saving habits. I can imagine how the techniques offered by the tool, along with the YNAB savings paradigm, can improve the way we view and use our money. Over at Amazon, I read a lot of comments about how it’s positively changed the financial lives of a lot of users.
I am intrigued by the need for a special - paid for - budgeting system. When we did our financial makeover we got rid of non-essential spending, found where we could get what we needed cheaper, put aside the amount we wanted to save and lived on what we had left.
We have used money from savings when we needed to replace our car and for the rare times we needed to pay out for something not on the monthly essentials. We have still managed to knock up a clear 25% of our gross income in savings.
I understand this might not be for everyone, but we did try to use a system for budgeting on a financial website - it didn’t work for us. We have a spreadsheet with payments which we keep updated, and we do keep an eye on what we pay out as it is easy to get ‘needs’ creeping in, which need booting out.
The one thing needed for any financial plan is determination and the ability to accept that living below your means - or how is the money going to be there to pay debts or save - will not be the same as debt fuelled living. It takes a change in the way of looking at life!