In case I have not made this abundantly clear on the blog – I HATE budgeting.
Did I make that clear enough yet? 🙂
Seriously, I would rather change 24 poopy diapers than to sit down and hammer budget.
Luckily, there are guys like Jesse Mecham who aim to make budgeting cool.
Is that really possible? Jesse would like to think so. 🙂
Here’s an interview with Jesse that further explains what YNAB is and how it can help with your budgeting needs.
Recapping from Jesse’s interview, YNAB’s four rules of budgeting are listed below. Here’s a more in depth look at their methodology.
- Rule One: Give every dollar a job
- Rule Two: Save for a rainy day
- Rule Three: Roll with the punches
- Rule Four: Live on last month’s income
Here’s another simple reason why I love YNAB. Most programs would give you a free trial, right? Realizing that it takes a full month to track your budget and then a few days to digest it, they give you 34 full days to test drive it.
YNAB vs. Mint – What’s the Difference?
I know many people love Mint. It’s free, easy to use and it’s…uh….free! So what makes YNAB different than Mint? I went straight to Jesse to clarify. Here’s what he had to say:
Mint is GREAT at letting you view all of your money in one place, and see what has been spent. It’s a very pretty post-mortem analysis opportunity. 🙂 YNAB, and its baked-in philosophy, is about getting people to look forward and anticipate, telling their money what to do before the spending happens, anticipating larger, less-frequent expenses, and eventually breaking the paycheck to paycheck cycle.
Jesse, also offers a friendly reminder you that while using YNAB you won’t be hawked any goods or outside services. 😉
YNAB is a Cult!
While interviewing Jesse, I stopped by the YNAB blog for the first time and was blown away how much interaction there was. I mean c’mon, it’s a blog catered to a budgeting software program! Don’t these people have any where better to hang out? 🙂
It became abundantly clear, YNAB users LOVE YNAB.
34 Day Free Trial
They are confident that after the 34 days of using YNAB you’ll be hooked. Care to take them up on their dare?
Try YNAB for Free for 34 Days. When you purchase, use this special link to get $6 off the purchase price.
P.S.
I want to also add that even though Jesse is a budgeting geek, he’s also an avid Crossfitter like myself. The last 2 years we’ve had a pull-up challenge on the Financial Bloggers Conference and he’s taken home the title both years. It’s those bulging biceps!
It seems like this would work well as an alternative to Mint for some people. I like Mint, but I also like budgeting. Maybe for those less inclined, using this alternative is a good choice. The main thing is to find something that works for you.
YNAB is a great help … to get organized and start planning for the future!
YNAB is the only way to get ahead and stay ahead.
YANB is awesome. You plan what you like and budget for it. Specially like its 4 rules which make all sense.
YNAB is awesome because it makes budgeting easy & fun!
YNAB is a valuable tool our family uses to plan the future use of our income. I find it a step above simply recording of expenses and looking at how we’ve done. It’s a planning tool. The use of mobile apps has really helped to current plan be available as decisions are being made.
YNAB works for me because instead of being just a bunch of numbers on a spreadsheet that bear no resemblance to real life, it is a living, breathing document that changes to fit what’s actually happening. Without it, I could not have saved enough money to buy a brand new car last year.
YNAB makes budgeting and tracking expenses not just easy but fun! It allows me to make spending decisions based on long-term goals, and also lets me roll with the punches when life gets interesting.
The thing I love about YNAB is that it helps me make sure I’m spending money on the things I value instead of frittering it away on things that don’t matter.
YNAB is amazing. I’ve never had so much money before in my life, nor have I had a plan to save as much money as I have. I no longer stress about paying bills, because I am a month ahead! Having that buffer really helps since my income is variable. Thanks so much!!!
YNAB is the best budgeting tool because it forces you to look at where you are BEFORE you make purchases, not AFTER!
YNAB is a good investment. It pays for it self many times… 🙂
YNAB is so awesome because it allows me to know at any given moment exactly how much money I have, exactly how much money I have spent and where/why I spent it.
YNAB makes tracking finance and budgeting something to look forward to because it’s fun and easy to use.
It’s fun, and a nice little graph shows me that since using YNAB, we went from negative $30,000 to positive $30,000 net worth in little over a year, awesome!
I love the YNAB iPhone app!
YNAB is teaching me to budget instead of just track expenses.
It’s awesome in its simplicity.
YNAB is great because it really makes budgeting fun, easy and efficient. It also helps enforce good financial strategies like saving for a rainy day. It makes it easy to recognize and avoid unnecessary expenses.
YNAB makes managing my money easy.
YNAB just makes it extremely easy to manage my money. Nothing else has helped me financially more than YNAB.
YNAB COMPLETELY changed my financial life. I had been tracking my spending since I got my first job at 16 and nine years later, I was $68k in debt and felt completely out of control. YNAB taught me how to control my money for the first time instead of letting it control me. I have paid off nearly $20k in less than a year and a half and the way I look at money has COMPLETELY changed because of YNAB and its principles.
I love YNAB because I have the app on my work computer (windows) and home computer (Mac) and the program avaialbe on my phone (Android) and it all gets synced so that my wife can stay up to date on it all and know how much we have so we don’t overspend on our budget.
Being an ex-Quicken addict, I saw the power in YNAB with being able to create a forward-looking budget to tell me where I’m going and not just where I’ve been with my spending.
YNAB is simple to use – no multiple spreadsheets or envelopes of cash!
YNAB is awesome because Y.N.A.B.. You do.
YNAB is so simple and easy to use!
YNAB gives me control over my finances whenever I have my iphone with me
I love YNAB because it makes budgeting easy and enjoyable.
Love using YNAB’s app to work with my desktop and iPhone. Like seeing where my expenses are going each month so I can make adjustments on the fly!
YNAB is the best because I can use in on my phone as well as my computer
YNAB is the program that I had been looking for. It lets me know exactly where I am financially and what I need to do to stay on track.
YNAB is awesome because it is so easy to set up, easy to use and fun. I actually look forward to using it.
YNAB is the tool I needed to really get me excited about doing a budget. After a couple years of trying to use Excel to keep track of it all, I finally broke down an bought YNAB, and I’m so glad I did. It does all the heavy lifting, without being complicated. Thanks YNAB!
YNAB is really simple, the system behind (the 4 pilars) is really simple to understand and follow.
The mobile app is just great.
YNAB is super awesome! It’s the greatest electronic envelope system that keeps me in line! That’s why I love it so much! 🙂
YNAB is awesome because it allows you to easily plan for your financial future.
Ynab is simple yet comprehensive. Love the mobile app.
YNAB is so awesome because the method doesn’t try to force you to be perfect; rather it empowers you to be good. And as Jessie says “perfect is the enemy of good.” In other words–YNAB empowers users to do only that which they need to do to gain control of their finances.
I Like YNAB because it helps me to plan my budget for the months to come and pay my debts faster.
Ynab is awesome because it’s thought for personal finance (instead of an accounting mindset as many other software) and it makes everything transparent. It’s then easy to see what’s going well and what must be improved. Keep on the good work
YNAB is awesome! I have used the software for over 5 years! I have recently just started listening to the podcast and am a fan!
I love ynab because it allows me to see the budget wherever I am!
Why use YNAB? Easy entry, accountability, and the phone apps.
Why is YNAB so awesome? Because their app makes it so easy to enter transactions.
I’ve liked your Facebook site, too!
YNAB makes planning and following a budget easy! I especially like the iPhone app!@
I heard about YNAB a few years ago & I think with their most recent enhancements it is finally time to sit down & give it a go. I think it will be the exact change in my mindset that I have been needing.
I have been reading about YNAB on several blogs, so I plan to try it out at the beginning of next month. Thanks for the interview and for the chance to hear from Jesse in person.
I think it is great that there are budgeting software out there that are offering their services for free or for a reasonable price. I personally use yodlee and an excel spreadsheet and think that it is an awesome budgeting software. However with the wider budgeting coverage of YNAB, I think that I might give it a try and see what it can do to my budget.
Been using YNAB since 2006! Wouldn’t be without it. Great for budgeting for future expenses.
I am using Mint for our budgeting system. With the 34-day trial it offers, I think I try this out and compare it with Mint later. Let ‘s see if I will get hooked, too. Thanks for sharing!
YNAB is cool!
+ You don’t mentioned that there is wonderful addition for that app called Numi: http://getnumi.info