| You Need a Budget (YNAB) personal budget
software has a very catchy title and claims to be a proven way to manage your money that
gets results.
Claims of YNAB
YNAB is based on four principles (called rules) of cash flow management.
Here is YNABs explanation of what they are.
Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck - YNAB will help you start
living on last months income
Give Every Dollar a Job - YNAB will help you allocate every
dollar of your take home pay so you know where your money is/should be going
Prepare for Rain - YNAB lets you set aside your dollars so
it can be accumulated for larger, infrequent expenses.
Roll with the Punches - YNAB will make adjustments to
categories that you overspend, forcing you to fix those mistakes as the next month rolls
on.
Versions of YNAB
There are basically two versions of You Need a Budget:
YNAB - This is the original spreadsheet format that the
system comes in. It can be opened in Excel or OpenOffice, so any operating system is
supported (Windows, Mac, Linux etc)
YNAB Pro - The newer update was released for Windows users.
Instead of running on spreadsheets, it now has a full graphical user interface.
Seeing YNAB in Action Alright. We all know why budgets are
important and YNAB certainly has big claims. How does it do what it says it does?
Register Your Expenses with YNAB In this section, you enter
your expenses as in any other budget software. The key is to enter every single expense
and be accurate with your data entry. Otherwise, you are not only cheating the software
but cheating yourself. Budgeting in YNAB Budgeting is at the heart of the program. The
uniqueness of YNAB is that the budget balances actually carry over from month to month.
Overspent in January? You will have less to spend with in February.
If you under-spend however, you can buy more in the
following month. Do I Need the YNAB Pro? For those that don't have Windows, YNAB Pro is
automatically out of the question as it only works in that platform (as of writing). Those
that want a simple, straight forward budgeting system and those that hate installing
software (me being one of them) would also welcome the spreadsheet version. However, the
pro version offers - Scheduling in YNAB (Pro Only)
In the pro version of YNAB, you can setup recurring
expenses so you don't have to manually re-enter them every month. Things that work well
here are expenses like mortgages, TV bills etc as it saves a lot of time and effort.
YNAB Reports (Pro Only) If you are into reporting and love
graphs and charts, YNAB Pro can give pretty nice looking ones for your viewing pleasure.
Why the spreadsheet version doesn't have it is beyond me as spreadsheets can give pretty
graphs as well, but maybe that's how they get you to buy the more expensive version. Split
Transactions in YNAB (Pro Only) When you enter expenses in YNAB, the pro version allows
you to drill down and break each transaction into different lines for its correct
categories. If you want to do the same thing in the spreadsheet version, you may need to
enter them as different transactions (totally doable by the way).
Is YNAB Worth It? As with everything that cost money, its a
personal decision. As of writing, the pro version is $49.95 and the spreadsheet version is
$24.95. If you are seriously going to use the software, either version will help you and
potentially save you many times more than your investment. However, if you are just going
to buy the software and not put any effort in using it, you will waste your money.
If you are on the fence with this software, know that they
provide a 60 day money back guarantee so there's basically no risk in trying it. If you
are serious about budgeting and is ready to try a well thought-out but simple program,
YNAB is worth a try.
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