Comments on: You Need a Budget (YNAB) Reader Testimonial

By: Frugal Vet Tech

Frugal Vet Tech — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 02:07:07 +0000

I love YNAB Pro! It was well worth the $40 we spent on it. We don’t actually use it the way they recommend (building up a full month’s reserve of money in your main account – we’ve chosen to have an emergency fund and keep it in a high-interest account), but I still love it. Their latest update kind of “greased up” the program and made it run smoother and faster. Before we started with YNAB, we’d sit down with our entire transaction record for the month, some paper, a pencil, and a calculator, and categorize everything by hand. It was such a pain and took so much time. Now I can download my transactions into YNAB, categorize them, and see how things turned out. The next step is to get better at sticking to our budgeted categories!

By: MM

MM — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 23:17:33 +0000

I’m a new user and so far have found it incredibly valuable in:
- uncovering unnecessary expenses
- giving a clear day to day (or week to week) picture of our finances
- creating the ‘burning platform’ urgency that DH and I need to take charge of our finances.

I definitely think YNAB fills a niche in the market – making common sense CONCRETE for those of us who lack the vision to implement budgeting…I mean REAL budgeting that sticks.

It has its quirks – I use Pro and wish it would act more like Excel in some areas, but overall a great $40 investment (and I’ve only been using it less than a month – it uncovered about 200 already that went into our Buffer to get to RULE 1).

By: Ryan McLean

Ryan McLean — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 15:20:40 +0000

Sounds pretty cool. Not something I am willing to put money towards just yet though. But thanks for letting us know about it

By: Scott Edwards

Scott Edwards — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 14:30:12 +0000

Eden – If you want to get into “the ynab way” you could purchase the spreadsheet version and use open office until Pro is released for the mac.

When it is released you can simply upgrade by paying the difference. Unfortunately there is no trial version of the spreadsheet (for obvious reasons!)

By: Eden

Eden — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 14:27:51 +0000

I’m anxious to try YNAB, but I’m still waiting for the Mac version…

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 13:23:10 +0000

I started using YNAB Pro in January 2008. I love this program! I use Quicken to keep track of all my accounts and then use YNAB for budgeting. I do not use the download transactions option because I like to enter all the transactions manually (I do this with Quicken as well). I feel that when you enter them manually, you get a better understanding of your spending and not just looking at the totals. It has taken me 8 months, but I am finally living off of last month’s pay (it is one of the YNAB rules). It is such a great feeling to have complete control and flexibility for each month knowing you already have all the money you need at the beginning of the month.

This program was the final tool that was missing for me. I highly recommend this program.

By: Scott Edwards

Scott Edwards — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 11:15:49 +0000

I could not agree more. I was bouncing off my overdraft every month until May this year when I started using YNAB.

The rules make alot of sense and once you get settled in, it is second nature to use the budget. I would recommend it to anyone.

The only worry is where all my money was going pre YNAB – I now end the month a million miles away from using my overdraft. It was a great investment!