Gotta try harder this year.

[gf1723]

Well a new year has come and I have obviously made a resolution towards my personal budgeting/finance. Exactly one year ago I had moved out of my parents’ house and gotten a real job. I knew that I would need to start budgeting since I would have to start paying rent and other things. I purchased the You Need A Budget (YNAB) software since it got excellent reviews, was modestly priced, and worked on all OS platforms. I quickly got frustrated with it about after using it for 2 months. I don’t remember exactly why but I just quit using it. Then I noticed that I started eating out a lot more because I was always too lazy to go grocery shopping.

I have decided to jump back on the train and focus a little harder this year. They also have free training courses that I can take online to help get myself started, which is very nice. I will probably also purchase the iPhone app they released, which will help me stay on top of things since I’m always using my phone. By the end of 2012, I hope to have a fully funded EF, some more money in my general savings account, and more of my car paid off.

Does anyone else use this software? Have you been successful with keeping your spending under control?

[skydivingchic]

I use Mvelopes, not YNAB, but they are both electronic envelope budgeting methods so the concepts are the same. Yes, the program has helped tremendously in controlling my spending. I had always wanted to think of my money in "buckets" for different purposes but couldn't figure out how to do it without opening a whole bunch of bank accounts to represent the different purposes. Mvelopes solved that problem. It also forces me to prioritize. The numbers are there in black and white, so I have to decide what is most important and prioritize my spending accordingly. When I sat down to Mvelopes for the first time it quickly became obvious that I was going to have to give up some of my wants spending in order to meet savings goals.

Since I started with the program I have paid off a chronic CC balance of a few thousand dollars, saved for a fully funded EF, paid cash for major car repairs and vet bills, paid cash for all gifts and vacations, and stopped paying CC interest. I've also saved up one month's worth of expenses so that I am able to fund all my envelopes fully on the first of each month instead of living paycheck to paycheck. This has smoothed out my cashflow tremendously - no more worrying about when my paycheck hits versus when bills are due and I have some time to deal with any little things that pop up during the month.

You can do it and the rewards are well worth it. Stick with it and good luck!

[bjl584]

I don't budget in the traditional sense. I know how much I save but I really don't track what I spend on any given thing.

I've always been able to track everything using Excel.

[jpg7n16]

Originally Posted by gf1723

Does anyone else use this software? Have you been successful with keeping your spending under control?

I use YNAB and I really like it.

But I use it to track my spending, then I make the detmerinations from there about where I need to cut back. Starting with my largest expense categories and working my way down. IMO software is best used to help you keep track of where the money went. Then it's up to you to make active changes to adjust your spending going forward based on what you see in the numbers.

I like some of the features, like how you can auto budget based on the 3 month average, or 12 month average. That saves some time and gives a realistic expectation of how to spread larger expenses out over time. I like their graphs too. Makes it easy to see spending trends.


The only thing that threw me off, was the whole - put this month's paycheck towards next month's expenses thing. That was a little odd to get used to. But now that I see that it doesn't fluctuate around each month, I can see a clearer picture of what the month will look like. The income is fixed, because that's what I earned last month. Makes sense now (after using it for months).

[Kooshiball]

If you are just starting out, you can simply use excel spread sheet to make a budget and actual result in each month since financial statement is not complicated.

Once you have more investments or other assets like rental properties, you can probably use quickbooks. That's what I am using to track my income and expense.

I hope it will help.

[snshijuptr]

I use a Google spreadsheet (so I can share with my husband) and since we put most things on credit card (and then pay it off) I just sit down once a week or so and log expenses from online banking. I use a simple Needs/Wants/Savings budget since I always got frustrated with the traditional category budgets. I count our small, monthly cash withdrawals as Wants. Between the two of us we usually have less than 50 transactions a month.