If you aren't using YNAB yet, you don't know what you're missing! This from someone who thought they were fine in the spending/budgeting dept. I've always been thrifty, but finding MMM about a year ago revolutionized my thriftiness to a Mustache with a goal. I maxed out what savings I could and cut expenses (read got Republic, started carpooling, got creative with groceries, etc) all thanks to the wonderful ideas and support on this forum. I thought I was doing great, but I was hitting that lull of having made all the changes and just waiting on the stach to grow. From the posts on the forum, YNAB was my way to interact with my money in a manner other than checking mint.com 4x a day (tell me I wasn't the only one, please). I figured it would be a fun thing to play around with and a good way to get organized.
After downloading the free trial, I was hooked. It's only been 3 months, but I can already see the difference. I used to budget in mint, but it felt very ineffective. YNAB's methodology of budgeting each paycheck and saving for rainy day expenses (car trouble, property tax, insurance, etc) once again revolutionized my post-MMM finances. The end goal is to save a month's buffer and live off of last month's income, while pushing the current months paycheck ahead to pay for the following month.
You guys, it's WORKING! After our retirement contributions, we only bring home about $2700 a month to live on. This software gives every dollar a job and makes sure we won't be underwater when the expenses hit. For those of us with lower incomes, this is so helpful. The website support is amazing and I've watched most of the how-to's and taken a few of their live classes. It's been worth the $60 over and over already. If you are interested, do the free trial. If you love it, you can get $6 off with my referral code (I get $6, too)
http://ynab.refr.cc/BSLVKLQ Or find one of the codes elsewhere on the forum! I just wanted to share how great of an experience I've had and that it can really help folks with hair on fire, or those of us ready to take the next step in controlling our $$!
