Are you actively using YNAB or YNAB Pro?

[jmjj215]

If there is anyone out there using YNAB or YNAB Pro, I'd love to hear your feedback. Feel free to PM me.

I'd mainly like to find out how many people purchase it and really implement it, or purchase it, and then give up (too quickly)! I think that's a problem w/ budgeting solutions in general - failure to launch, so to speak.

Anyway, all feedback is appreciated. I know there are some forum members out there that use it!

[Broken Arrow]

I don't use YNAB, but I think it's a fine product.

I agree that failure to launch is one of the biggest obstacles. Once in orbit, things get a lot easier.

[zetta]

I bought it, used it for about 6-8 weeks, then stopped. The main reason for stopping was that I was planning on cancelling my Mvelopes subscription, but called too late and ended up being billed for an extra 3 months. (They have a draconion refund policy -- very annoying!) DH had no motivation to switch over at that point, and I didn't want to do double-entry using both tools. When my Mvelopes expires again I will probably go back to using YNAB.

There is one part of the YNAB approach that bugs me a bit -- I like to set my budget at the beginning of the month, then if I overspend in some catagories and underspend in others, I move money between envelopes to adjust. In YNAB, I have to actually change the budget at the end of the month to match what I spent in order to be able to move money around. It's a mindset thing, but just what I prefer.

I didn't play around with it long enough to see if I could generate the reports I like to print out for our twice-monthly budget review. One is budget vs actual spent (by envelope). The other is current balance in each envelope.

I'd be happy to chat with you about both tools if you want a more detailed comparison of what I like and don't like about each.

[jmjj215]

There is one part of the YNAB approach that bugs me a bit -- I like to set my budget at the beginning of the month, then if I overspend in some catagories and underspend in others, I move money between envelopes to adjust. In YNAB, I have to actually change the budget at the end of the month to match what I spent in order to be able to move money around. It's a mindset thing, but just what I prefer.

Ah, so you'd like to have a "budget" number -- kind of your goal that you're shooting for -- and then another number with actual funding in the category. That does give you more feedback on what you had hoped to spend with what you actually did spend.

I'd love to hear any other feedback you have!

[zetta]

The three numbers I like to see for each catagory are budget, actual spent, and current balance (which can go positive or negative). I guess you've actually got all three currently -- I just want to be able to transfer money between catagories without changing the budgeted amount.

From reading your forum I know you plan to add an account field to the transactions -- this one is important to me as well. I keep the emergency fund in a money market, and the savings for large infrequent expenses like insurance, property tax, and vacations in a savings account so that the money draws more interest. It's important to be able to see at a glance where the money physically resides.

[FrugalTexan75]

Hi Jesse,

I'm still using YNAB Pro. Not as faithfully as I should be - have been kind of off budget since May. I just wanted to say that I like it like it is.

Laura

[b4freedom]

What is YNAB?

[jmjj215]

What is YNAB?

It stands for "You Need A Budget" (because you do!)

If you don't like the name, you'll have to tell my wife, as she's the one that came up with it...

[b4freedom]

Is this something you created?

[b4freedom]

Two questions: Does it split out deposits by payee? For example, I get a work related check from xyz company and another check my mother. I deposit them at the same time. In the software, can I specify two different payees as well as two different categories. Or even more categories. What if my mom was paying me back for $50 worth of groceries I purchased for her and $50 for me as a gift? I can split it out by payee and then split it out again by category of income?

How does it compare to MS Money/Quicken? I upgraded from Money 2000 to the more recent version this year and I hate it. I can't see what's happening in the background, it's full of advertisement (do they sell my finance data?), and it doesn't allow me to specify the two different names on one deposit slip. I guess the assumption is that you only deposit one check at a time or that the all checks on one deposit slip come from the same company/person. I can split the entire deposit by as many categories as I want.

If you did that, I'd probably switch. Then I'd also worry a lot less about why I have to lot into an MSN web account in order to access my personal banking information on my pc.

[jmjj215]

Ah, I won't go into it here, but will give you a very quick elevator pitch.

The methodology behind it is what makes it powerful. The software is simply a tool to implement the methodology (a framework, very flexible). It doesn't compare to MS Money and Quicken because it focuses exclusively on budgeting. I've found in my own finances, and helping others, that when you focus on your cash flow, managing that, everything else seems to take care of itself

[LuxLiving]

Jesse, I actively use mine, just busy busy at the moment and don't have much time to chat about it. However, I have a moment to say to prospective users... I LIKE IT, I LOVE IT, I WANT SOME MORE OF IT!!

[jmjj215]

However, I have a moment to say to prospective users... I LIKE IT, I LOVE IT, I WANT SOME MORE OF IT!!

Ha!

[Dido]

Hi Jesse, I've been using YNAB since the middle of 2006 and recently downloaded an evaluation copy of Pro. I've been using it consistently, but not always in exactly the way intended. It took me a long time to build up a buffer, so for the first year & a half I entered all income as supplemental. I waited until downloading the trial version of Pro and the new year to start entering income as Primary, even though I was in a position to do so at least 6 months ago.

Although I understood the basic rules, I admit there are some things that really confused me a lot at first. Since I see on the YNAB forums you're writing a new setup guide, I'll mention those here:

1. The most confusing thing was not entering payments to my credit card, since if you do so, you end up double counting expenses. To my mind, you can't emphasize this point enough! It took me months to figure this out.

2. I've never really understood about Transfers from savings (and in fact I don't even see them in Pro). The new setup guide could be a bit more explicit on how to handle Transfers from existing savings--are they income or not?

3. It took me a while to grasp the idea of making negative entries to outflw rather than positive entries to inflow when one does a return or gets a rebate/reimbursement. More info on that would be helpful.

I use YNAB because I like tracking my expenses in detail. That said, for the first 6 months of 2007 I was using a competitor product, Make$cents, which I found a bit more intuitive to use because (a) it had account balances and could balance one's checkbook; (b) the graphical interface showing little mini-envelopes rather than just a line with a balance is strangely compelling. I switched back when my old computer died because I wanted to be on the Excel platform (and I'm only upgrading to Pro because I can cut & paste the info into Excel)--being stuck on a proprietary platform is difficult when one's computer crashes--plus Excel lets me generate all kinds of custon reports & graphs.

I love the product, but I think improving the setup guide to handle these confusing points may help with people using it, at least a little. Having the automatic download from banks will also help since having to enter data by hand is a time swamp that also provides a barrier to continued use. But there will always be some resistance--behavior change is hard!