The Money Mustache Community
General Discussion => Welcome and General Discussion => Topic started by: tag on May 12, 2013, 04:38:55 PM
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Which do you use? Or do you use neither? Which is better?
Would be really interested in all comments and feedback.
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I tried to use YNAB per the recommendation(s) here, but my spouse is 100% against it so not really much of a point [doesnt want to manually enter every single transaction]. Since she does like 80% of our spending it's dead in the water.
So I will just ocntinue to use mint retroactively. The "...hey hun our credit card is over 4k with 15 days left in the cycle..." trick seems to be of some use. But the supposed benefit of making spending 'painful' that is referenced here didnt work for us. Oh well. Back to the hall of shame.
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I've used both (and MS Money and Quicken) and for my purposes YNAB is much, much better. YNAB nudges you toward good financial discipline. It's not required that you live on last month's income, but the software really encourages it. Especially if you have a variable income, this makes a zero based budget possible. And it makes tracking sinking funds easier than Mint, in my opinion. Downside of YNAB is that you do have to download your bank transactions (doesn't update automatically like Mint) but you don't have to enter them all in manually (as suggested by the PP) unless you're only spending cash. But since we use our debit card for pretty much everything, the downloading really only takes a couple of minutes, every couple of days. I find it useful to keep tabs on my spending at least that frequently anyway.
However, if you're a person with extreme financial disciple, it probably doesn't matter. In that case, you can probably use Excel. Or a pencil.
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Ynab is forward looking and will change your life. Mint is backward looking and will only nag when you've overspent.
100% recommend Ynab
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I tried Mint and hated it. I very much prefer hand entering every transaction. How are you supposed to catch fraud when you allow the bank to enter stuff for you? Also, it never tracked the net worth properly, and one of our retirement accounts would not automatically update. Basically it had far too many glitches for my way of life.
Just started using YNAB at the beginning of the year, and after an adjustment period I'm a convert. I enter my transactions, which I like. It tracks everything in my budget, and also tells me how much is left in each category. The reconciliation is great, as is the reporting tools.
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First, I think YNAB is 100% better for me.
Second, they do two different things. So, it really depends on what you're looking for if you're looking for a recommendation.
If you want a budgeting tool...you want YNAB all the way. If you want a reporting tool with recommendations on stuff you want Mint. I see them as different tools for different purposes so I don't like comparing them directly. Figure out what you are looking to accomplish and make your decision based on that, not which tool people like more.
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First, I think YNAB is 100% better for me.
Second, they do two different things. So, it really depends on what you're looking for if you're looking for a recommendation.
If you want a budgeting tool...you want YNAB all the way. If you want a reporting tool with recommendations on stuff you want Mint. I see them as different tools for different purposes so I don't like comparing them directly. Figure out what you are looking to accomplish and make your decision based on that, not which tool people like more.
Good points! They really are different tools. I can't say one is a Philips head and the other Standard. It is almost like comparing a sledgehammer to a hand saw.
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I posted this in "Ask a Mustachian" but since it's a similar topic, here goes:
I have been using YNAB for a few months and I love it for the following reasons:
1. YNAB is more than a budgeting software... it's like a budgeting philosophy. They teach you about "credit card float" which is to say that most people who use credit cards are actually living off of next months income. Therefore you are always paying off the stuff spent from the month before. They encourage people to live off of last months income therefore you know exactly how much you have to spend/save next month.
2. It has a one time fee and they provide free upgrades for the version you are using and if they come up with a new version, they offer a discount to upgrade to the new version.
3. YNAB is actually about setting a budget vs. tracking spending. I find that most other software track your spending verses actually trying to set a budget.
4. They have cloud syncing which allows you to track your spending in real time. I no longer keep receipts to check for errors because I have entered the transaction while in line at Costco or filling up gasoline. I only keep receipts now if I foresee the need to exchange something.
5. They give you a free 34 day trial to see if you like it. I used the trial and I was hooked within a few days..
I have a referral link if you want a 10% discount on the software: http://ynab.refr.cc/4TH7HRG. For full disclosure, the referral link gives me a bonus for referring people though that is not why I recommend the program. I really do love the program and it has definitely allowed me to track and budget my spending in a very easy way. If you curious about other reviews of YNAB, check out the reviews on Amazon, there are people who love it and some people who don't. Once you check the reviews, don't buy it on amazon as they charge more for it than if you were to just go to YNAB's website...
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Or you could save $60 and use excel, or numbers for mac. I am no wizz but I have set up a spreadsheet using the later and one of the financial templates it came with. I then copy and paste the transactions from my online accounts, label them with the categories I find useful and voila. Pretty pie charts and everything.
Mint is not available in my country.
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I've been using YNAB since October 2012, and I can honestly say it has been a key part of my success lately.
I did use Mint.com a year or so ago, I really didn't like it.
Like others have said, YNAB really is a change of mindset... Use the money you have now, and decide what it needs to do. If you want 50% to investments, budget 50% to your investments and then allocate the rest to your bills.
It has the ability to be as general, or as granular as you want... You can have 4 or 40 categories, it's up to you. I laugh when people scoff at the $60 price tag, citing some other free way of doing it... It's not $60 per month, it's $60 one time, an *investment* in budgeting. Plus, it's only $54 if you use a referral link (I bought the domain www.youneedynab.com as my referral code ). I've spent $60 on a few different computer games over the past few years, and I felt that spending $60 on a program to help me saving and spending wisely was a great investment.
I literally went from being ignorant and always having no money left to invest (or pay off debt in my case), to putting nearly $1000 per month (20% of income) towards debt repayment.. I attribute quite a bit of this to the manual entry of spending, when I or my wife spends money on something, I know when we get home I am going to enter that into YNAB, and I better have enough $ in the category it belongs to! Before I would have merely checked how much $ was in my account, thinking in my head "Ok, rent is due on the 1st, car insurance on the 4th, Cable bill is due sometime soon" forgetting about many many bills that would come out on the 1st (home insurance, bank fees, wife's student loan payment, etc etc...
The "budget in my head" failed me for so many years... I needed something better.
Thinking of it now, if I had YNAB 5 years ago, I would be debt free, and saving 25+% of my income.
If I started YNAB 5 years from now, I'd probably be exactly where I am now.
Then again, YNAB or any other budgeting process will only do so much, the power comes from implementing the budget. Nothing will help if you ignore it...
Having said that, I fully understand that a lot of people are naturally frugal, or naturally able to budget, once you hit your savings goal, the rest is free to spend. I am both impressed and respectful of that, more power to you if you can. One day I will likely be there too, and not need YNAB... But I'm still in the training phase :)
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What I have to say about Mint vs YNAB:
Mint looks backwards and tells you what you had.
YNAB looks forwards, and tells you what you have.
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I've been using YNAB since December. It has been great for me. I am trying to ramp up the amount I am putting away into investments and it has been a great tool for this.
I know what each dollar I have is intended for. If I have a bunch of money sitting in my accounts, I don't buy stupid shit because I think I have money to burn. Instead I know that this money is for mortgage and bills, that money is for food for the month, this other pile of money is for auto insurance, that pile of money is for future home repairs, here's my entertainment money, here's my money for fuel, for auto maintenance/repair and this other pile is for a future replacement vehicle. Each month I need to allocate 1/12 of my yearly costs for birthdays, Christmas, and Mother's Day. Same for personal property taxes. Same for vacation budget. Health care costs. And on and on.
Then I know from what's left over, I can dollar cost average the rest into my investments. I have already accounted for all of my needs, wants and future savings goals. My finances are a well oiled machine now. I have no stress at all.
All I do now is work on learning strategies for reducing my expenses further to free up more money to invest. 5.5 months into using YNAB, it has been the best thing I have ever bought.
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I used Mint for years. I was always annoyed with it because it had trouble importing the accounts from my credit union. It kinda halfway worked, but there were always problems and it would often duplicate transactions. After years of putting up with it and manually fixing things, I finally deleted my account.
I've been using YNAB since January and really like it. I was never in debt or living on float, and I never really had an overspending problem, but I did the whole "keep the budget in my head" thing for years which worked okay but not great. Now that I have YNAB, it's much easier to see the areas where I'm spending too much to the detriment of other things like saving for investments or a down payment on a house, and adjust accordingly.
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I've used YNAB consistently since December. I agree with the other comments that (1) YNAB is a philosophy/strategy rather than a recording what you've done and (2) has major benefits over Mint. That said, it's really good for honing down where money is leaking out of your budget (cable, insurance, fuel, eating out) so you can tackle each thing one by one. We've made changes to the tune of $11k/yr, moving forward, by examining each of the categories. Plan on spending a good 3 months just learning the ropes, and figuring out what you really need to budget.
Since I've started reading MMM, I have explicitly created a MMM "Category" and am budgeting 10% take-home pay to it now, and plan to ramp it up gradually (say 5% a month) until I get a real handle on what we (a family of 5) need to live comfortably. (This is in a month where those savings of $11k/yr don't really show up yet.)
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I'll chime in for the other side of the coin since everyone seems to be for YNAB so far. I use mint and a spreadsheet. I probably could just ditch the spreadsheet but force of habit. For me mint is great because I don't have a spending issue. I just never documented exactly how much I spent on certain things like gas and food. When I started using mint I found out my estimates were higher than what I was really spending. For me it just allows me to be lazy about recording things from my various accounts and pulls up the information in one place. Especially things like growth in my investments which I can see elsewhere but since my Roth and taxable investments are elsewhere from my work retirement account it is nice to have it in one view.
I think in the end if you are naturally frugal but a little lazy on keeping track of extreme detail and just care about the past then go with mint. If you are not naturally frugal and really need to mentally be aware of where all your money is disappearing and feel some pain then YNAB may be better for you.
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^^^That sounds right.
If you're surprised by how much you spend, use YNAB.
If you're surprised by how little you spend (or not surprised!), use Mint.
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^^^That sounds right.
If you're surprised by how much you spend, use YNAB.
If you're surprised by how little you spend (or not surprised!), use Mint.
I am not surprised by how much or how little I spend. Should I use neither?
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I'm putting in a YNAB vote. Mint was way to granular for me... I had to go through and re-categorize everything repeatedly just to get a feel for what I was spending. I didn't need eating out broken down between a coffee shop and fast food. The budgeting tool was even worse. I felt like I was struggling to get by, and using credit cards to make ends meet.
But with YNAB, I know exactly what I've got, and what I need it to do. The first time I entered everything, I literally had $500 I had no idea what to do with. Without seeing everything like I can in YNAB, I would be way too scared to drop $1,500 in debt payments on the first of every month. And it's nice to be able to play with things. I can play out "what if" scenarios, or bump money from groceries to gas if I need to. Honestly, it's probably more of a beginner's tool, as far as Mustachianism is concerned. Just be careful not to use it to give yourself permission to spend more; the goal is always to have the largest balance you can in each category every month. I recently cut down my categories to help eliminate wasteful spending. But, as far as I'm concerned, YNAB is my financial savior.
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I commented in the other thread already, but here again: I've been an Excel spreadsheet budgeter forever. When I found this blog and the forums, I signed up for Mint and love it for the snapshot of net worth. The budgeting part is pretty clunky and limiting. I also admit to trying out pretty much every free/low cost budgeting app I can find, and they all pretty much disappoint.
Four days ago I signed up for the free month of YNAB, with low expectations even though many people here seem to be a fan and the folks in their forums are enthusiastic. I jumped right in and really liked the interface, but I found myself trying to use it like Excel and budget all in one "picture" and try to move on to the next month, which was great but not ideal. Then I went and watched the videos and learned how to ACTUALLY use the program. I was like, no. I like to budget ahead and I am a stubborn person and already good at budgeting and harumph, etc.
But I decided to give a real try anyway. There is something really powerful and basic about taking what you have available and putting it to work. This program allows for snapshot after snapshot of the REALITY of your spending. It's a plan in action, and quite fun to use. It's been three days and I already know that I'll be paying for it, and that I will probably have more left over this month to invest than ever before.
I totally recommend watching the first few how-to videos, and trying it out for the free month. Also, their welcome e-mail series is a hoot.
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I am not surprised by how much or how little I spend. Should I use neither?
Heh. You shouldn't waste time tracking your spending at all, if it's all in your head. Why bother?
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I commented in the other thread already, but here again: I've been an Excel spreadsheet budgeter forever. When I found this blog and the forums, I signed up for Mint and love it for the snapshot of net worth. The budgeting part is pretty clunky and limiting. I also admit to trying out pretty much every free/low cost budgeting app I can find, and they all pretty much disappoint.
Four days ago I signed up for the free month of YNAB, with low expectations even though many people here seem to be a fan and the folks in their forums are enthusiastic. I jumped right in and really liked the interface, but I found myself trying to use it like Excel and budget all in one "picture" and try to move on to the next month, which was great but not ideal. Then I went and watched the videos and learned how to ACTUALLY use the program. I was like, no. I like to budget ahead and I am a stubborn person and already good at budgeting and harumph, etc.
But I decided to give a real try anyway. There is something really powerful and basic about taking what you have available and putting it to work. This program allows for snapshot after snapshot of the REALITY of your spending. It's a plan in action, and quite fun to use. It's been three days and I already know that I'll be paying for it, and that I will probably have more left over this month to invest than ever before.
I totally recommend watching the first few how-to videos, and trying it out for the free month. Also, their welcome e-mail series is a hoot.
This is very true.
I was an excel budgeter who thought I was doing great. Boy, was I pissed off when YNAB made me realize I was living off of NEXT month's income by using my credit cards in anticipation of paychecks I will receive next month. 5 years later, I am still using YNAB, and have amassed a great amount of savings and a 50% savings rate without even knowing about MMM and ever evaluating what my savings rate in that way. I was just budgeting for my categories that I wanted to fund!
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So if you are more interested in tracking spending than setting an actual budget, YNAB is not the right tool? That's what I'm getting from this conversation.
I might still go see this video someone mentioned about how to use it, but I'm not really interested in a granular budget. We're more of a "Here's $250 for the week, spend it on whatever but thats all there is" kind of house. Bills first, debt repayment / savings second, whatever is left is what we live on.
I wouldn't really mind having to manually enter stuff so much, given mint IS glitchy and tends to miss stuff. I just haven't seen anything yet that combines all my accounts in one place like mint. I just want it for reporting at the end of the month to see the trends.
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So if you are more interested in tracking spending than setting an actual budget, YNAB is not the right tool? That's what I'm getting from this conversation.
I might still go see this video someone mentioned about how to use it, but I'm not really interested in a granular budget. We're more of a "Here's $250 for the week, spend it on whatever but thats all there is" kind of house. Bills first, debt repayment / savings second, whatever is left is what we live on.
I wouldn't really mind having to manually enter stuff so much, given mint IS glitchy and tends to miss stuff. I just haven't seen anything yet that combines all my accounts in one place like mint. I just want it for reporting at the end of the month to see the trends.
That's actually how we use YNAB for weekly stuff like groceries and gas, just set a weekly limit. I honestly don't care if I spent $100 or $150 a month on gas, just that my overall spending is contained.
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So if you are more interested in tracking spending than setting an actual budget, YNAB is not the right tool? That's what I'm getting from this conversation.
I might still go see this video someone mentioned about how to use it, but I'm not really interested in a granular budget. We're more of a "Here's $250 for the week, spend it on whatever but thats all there is" kind of house. Bills first, debt repayment / savings second, whatever is left is what we live on.
I wouldn't really mind having to manually enter stuff so much, given mint IS glitchy and tends to miss stuff. I just haven't seen anything yet that combines all my accounts in one place like mint. I just want it for reporting at the end of the month to see the trends.
yes, you can make it as granular or non-granular as you like. and you can add all your accounts, which is helpful to me because i keep my household's emergency fund in a high interest checking account, which also holds my allowance and some of our loan payments. ynab helps me keep all the different buckets (all in that one account) straight.
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It is really interesting to hear the issues with mint.com. It is like people don't expect to have any configuration or management - yet with the other they are ok with doing itemized entry. Even in an itemized entry there is potential to have to go back. Mint does a best guess, but I have updated it various times. I still find I am spending less time doing my glance throughs (since we have basically been using the same categories now for a year or so).
Yes, there is a set up. Yes, it isn't perfect. But I hate having to enter in each and every transaction. I am a big proponent of using credit cards and then paying off the cards every month and limit cash transactions as this provides a level of accountability (now if I could only get my wife to believe the same and use the same cards!).
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For me the problem with mint isn't that you have to re-categorize a few things here and there, that's to be expected.
The problem is it seems to completely miss some transactions. Double counts others, doesn't always connect to all your accounts, loses history, etc..
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argh, and YNAB was on sale for 20 bucks last month. GDI. angry i missed that.
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I haven't had many issues with mint. I had a bunch of double transactions show up once but mint tech support was able to resolve the issue for me. Not the best support in the world but considering I don't pay them a cent it was pretty good actually. They didn't let the issue go until I was happy with the result. Better than some places I pay for.
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It is really interesting to hear the issues with mint.com. It is like people don't expect to have any configuration or management - yet with the other they are ok with doing itemized entry. Even in an itemized entry there is potential to have to go back. Mint does a best guess, but I have updated it various times. I still find I am spending less time doing my glance throughs (since we have basically been using the same categories now for a year or so).
Yes, there is a set up. Yes, it isn't perfect. But I hate having to enter in each and every transaction. I am a big proponent of using credit cards and then paying off the cards every month and limit cash transactions as this provides a level of accountability (now if I could only get my wife to believe the same and use the same cards!).
That wasn't my issue with Mint. My biggest problem is that it didn't keep ANY net worth history! Considering that I really wanted to be able to track that and I thought Mint would be a good way of doing that, I was very frustrated. I have no idea why Mint would not keep any of my history.
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I may be the odd person on this thread, wait, I may always be the odd person, but I have found that Mint transformed my spending habits. I really don't use the budgeting tools in Mint, I have entered them but don't pay much attention. For me though, it has made a huge difference seeing what I spend and where, and seeing what my investments are doing on a daily basis. I check daily, probably not cool I know.
On the budgeting side, I pay all my bills at the beginning of the month including my savings investment. Over the next few days I watch the bills hit Mint then I challenge myself to not spend whats left or spend as little as possible of whats left. Then towards the end of the month I dump that leftover in savings also. I then keep track over time in excel.
If I had to enter transactions I wouldn't do it. There have been a few times when I've seen things hit one of my Mint accounts and said WTF is that?!, then been able to trace it back and realize I actually did spend that - stupid!. The way I use Mint may cause me to not gain as much ground as YNAB is doing for many but I can't imagine not using Mint right now.
It does have a few glitches but they generally self correct in about 12-24 hours. I have used Mint since November and said dozens of times that I would not be saving as well as I am without it, its an absolutely critical tool for me and its free.
I have wondered about Personal Capital also. I am certainly willing to learn something in this regard though.
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If I had to enter transactions I wouldn't do it. There have been a few times when I've seen things hit one of my Mint accounts and said WTF is that?!, then been able to trace it back and realize I actually did spend that - stupid!. The way I use Mint may cause me to not gain as much ground as YNAB is doing for many but I can't imagine not using Mint right now.
i use both -- YNAB for forward planning and mint for historical info. they work really well together, i think.
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... i keep my household's emergency fund in a high interest checking account...
In today's world, that's an oxymoron if I've ever seen one
:-)
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... i keep my household's emergency fund in a high interest checking account...
In today's world, that's an oxymoron if I've ever seen one
:-)
haha, well it's a relative statement. 1.78% :)
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I'll put in a vote for Mint and echo what other people have said about it being good for tracking primarily and looking for historical spending. It's also helpful for me to keep up with current balances in various accounts. YNAB wasn't useful for me when I tried the free trial because I pay everything automatically, so budgeting's never really been my problem.
I wouldn't really mind having to manually enter stuff so much, given mint IS glitchy and tends to miss stuff. I just haven't seen anything yet that combines all my accounts in one place like mint. I just want it for reporting at the end of the month to see the trends.
Learnvest.com is another free site that combines all accounts. It's not great at giving past reports, but I've found the expense tracking to be more accurate than Mint.
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So if you are more interested in tracking spending than setting an actual budget, YNAB is not the right tool? That's what I'm getting from this conversation.
I might still go see this video someone mentioned about how to use it, but I'm not really interested in a granular budget. We're more of a "Here's $250 for the week, spend it on whatever but thats all there is" kind of house. Bills first, debt repayment / savings second, whatever is left is what we live on.
I wouldn't really mind having to manually enter stuff so much, given mint IS glitchy and tends to miss stuff. I just haven't seen anything yet that combines all my accounts in one place like mint. I just want it for reporting at the end of the month to see the trends.
Not at all.
YNAB is great for showing a history of your spending. For what you want to do, you would setup a category for Everything Else, and budget $250 towards it. When their is no category balance left, you can't spend anymore. Your budget can be as simple or as complex as you would like.
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That wasn't my issue with Mint. My biggest problem is that it didn't keep ANY net worth history! Considering that I really wanted to be able to track that and I thought Mint would be a good way of doing that, I was very frustrated. I have no idea why Mint would not keep any of my history.
I'm really annoyed that I had to delete my investment and student loan accounts and re-add them in January. It deleted all the history of those two accounts, so my net worth prior to January is worthless. I moved apartments in January, and started reading MMM back in October. I was really looking forward to seeing what my net worth trend was from those two points, but now it's basically useless.
I can still look at net income, but even that is a bit screwy. I just don't understand why they would delete historical transactions.
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So if you are more interested in tracking spending than setting an actual budget, YNAB is not the right tool? That's what I'm getting from this conversation.
I might still go see this video someone mentioned about how to use it, but I'm not really interested in a granular budget. We're more of a "Here's $250 for the week, spend it on whatever but thats all there is" kind of house. Bills first, debt repayment / savings second, whatever is left is what we live on.
I wouldn't really mind having to manually enter stuff so much, given mint IS glitchy and tends to miss stuff. I just haven't seen anything yet that combines all my accounts in one place like mint. I just want it for reporting at the end of the month to see the trends.
Not at all.
YNAB is great for showing a history of your spending. For what you want to do, you would setup a category for Everything Else, and budget $250 towards it. When their is no category balance left, you can't spend anymore. Your budget can be as simple or as complex as you would like.
I've downloaded the trial and have been playing around with it. I'm still not sure if it will really be worth it to me, but I figured I should give it a shot and see what happens. It seems from the videos I've been watching that the most important thing is that process, and not trying to budget money until you actually have that money in hand. I get that, but when I've got 3 bills left this month and only enough money to budget for one of those (BUT I have two more paychecks coming), what am I supposed to do? Not put them in and risk forgetting about them? Go ahead and put them in and make my numbers all red?
I don't like red numbers :(
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I get that, but when I've got 3 bills left this month and only enough money to budget for one of those (BUT I have two more paychecks coming), what am I supposed to do? Not put them in and risk forgetting about them? Go ahead and put them in and make my numbers all red?
I don't like red numbers :(
i have a google calendar that lists all my monthly bills on the dates they're due. when money comes into my account, i refer to the calendar and budget for the bills that are due between now and my next paycheck. on the next payday, i budget for the following 2 weeks of bills.
eventually, i guess the idea is to use last month's pay to pay this month's bills, in which case you can budget for the whole month at once. but i prefer to go in and budget money as it arrives, sending any excess directly into savings or debt repayment.
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eventually, i guess the idea is to use last month's pay to pay this month's bills, in which case you can budget for the whole month at once...
I don't mean this as criticism in any way, but I've never understood the concept of using last month's money to pay this month's bills, unless you are living paycheck to paycheck and need to make sure you aren't going to overdraft. Once you have your expenses below your income, and have a stache to draw from, why does it matter which paycheck is going to which bills?
For example, if I bring in $6k per month, and my average monthly expenses are $3.5k, why do I care if I am spending money from last paycheck, this paycheck, or whatever. It's all money that is already there, and sitting in the same pot. Just keep a buffer of a few thousand in the checking, put the rest into whatever your preferred investment is, and never worry about whether your money comes in on the 1st and 15th, or the 14th and 28th, no? If you have unexpected expenses, pull it out of one of the other accounts.
As for what other people have said about credit card float and spending next month's money, isn't credit card float a good thing? I get cashback on my purchases, I float the money at 0% for up to 30 days, and that allows me to have a little more money in an interest-bearing account. Sounds like win-win to me.
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Hamster, that is why I use YNAB as I do. We are not living paycheck to paycheck, I just like the YNAB interface for deciding where each of my employees is going as soon as I get them.
And credit card float is a great thing if used responsibly. I think that a lot of people probably don't use it responsibly, so they need the "live on last month's money" direction. Probably not needed for most mustachians.
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I get that, but when I've got 3 bills left this month and only enough money to budget for one of those (BUT I have two more paychecks coming), what am I supposed to do? Not put them in and risk forgetting about them?
This is the epitome of what living paycheck to paycheck is.... you NEED that next paycheck to cover the bills, or else they are NSF.
Building a buffer in your checking account to cover all monthly bills is what YNAB considers "living on last month's income". At the 1st of the month, you'll have all of your income budgeted, you don't have to worry about paychecks, and just budget all your bills. To do this, you need to have one month's expenses saved in your checking/savings account that is easily accessed.
It makes sense to have at least one month's expenses readily available, no??
Anyway, if you don't have one month's savings yet, we're in trouble! Or in debt! LOL. That's actually exactly where I am. I could save 1 month's expenses and budget an entire month's bills on the 1st, but that would delay me paying off debt, and I prefer to pay off debt. Personal choice.
If you have sufficient savings to cover a month's expenses, use that to get you through this month, and budget your paychecks as "Income for (June)" or whatever the next month is. This way, the income shows 'Available to budget' for June, and come June 1st, you'll have an entire month's pay to budget with.
Until then, work on building a month's buffer as a category, I would use a category called "Buffer category" and just plunk extra $ into that monthly until you have saved up a month's income.
Am I rambling? Probably.... Carry on!
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An answer to the quote, perhaps, is to add a Note to the category that needs to be budgeted once you get paid again... if you click on the "Click to add note here" icon inside a category, you can put in what the $ will be needed off your next paycheck. Whenever you get paid, ALWAYS check the notes first!! Allocate that $ first, then you can distribute the rest as necessary. That's what I do and it seems to work! As long as you/I remember to budget the noted categories first!
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eventually, i guess the idea is to use last month's pay to pay this month's bills, in which case you can budget for the whole month at once...
I don't mean this as criticism in any way, but I've never understood the concept of using last month's money to pay this month's bills, unless you are living paycheck to paycheck and need to make sure you aren't going to overdraft. Once you have your expenses below your income, and have a stache to draw from, why does it matter which paycheck is going to which bills?
If you are hourly, wages can very quite a bit from month to month. If you're salaried and have a system going for you that works, great. Personally, the beauty of YNAB for me is the ability to set aside money for different things before you need it (and preventing double counting that checking account float). I'm not living paycheck to paycheck but knowing exactly how much I have at the beginning of the month is way less stressful than worrying about how big that last paycheck is going to be. You are also assuming that everyone has a stache outside of tax advantaged accounts - at medium income levels (~30k in my city) maxing out a Roth IRA takes about 15-20% of net income. Add 401k contributions and having a month's float in cash (this month's income as you wait for next month) vs. paying via credit card float (next month's income pays off the cards) can make a big difference.
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Well I suppose that I am living paycheck to paycheck in the sense that I don't have $8,000 sitting in my checking account right now. I'd rather send that money to a credit card balance than leave it 'waiting' for a bill to pay. 1 month's expenses in cash would pay off two of the lowest credit card balances I have. After that 1 months' expenses would pay off my student loan. After that.... etc. In other words, debt is the priority.
I also use google calendar for all my bill scheduling, which is why I'm trying to figure out if YNAB will actually be useful to me.
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eventually, i guess the idea is to use last month's pay to pay this month's bills, in which case you can budget for the whole month at once...
I don't mean this as criticism in any way, but I've never understood the concept of using last month's money to pay this month's bills, unless you are living paycheck to paycheck and need to make sure you aren't going to overdraft. Once you have your expenses below your income, and have a stache to draw from, why does it matter which paycheck is going to which bills?
For example, if I bring in $6k per month, and my average monthly expenses are $3.5k, why do I care if I am spending money from last paycheck, this paycheck, or whatever. It's all money that is already there, and sitting in the same pot. Just keep a buffer of a few thousand in the checking, put the rest into whatever your preferred investment is, and never worry about whether your money comes in on the 1st and 15th, or the 14th and 28th, no? If you have unexpected expenses, pull it out of one of the other accounts.
As for what other people have said about credit card float and spending next month's money, isn't credit card float a good thing? I get cashback on my purchases, I float the money at 0% for up to 30 days, and that allows me to have a little more money in an interest-bearing account. Sounds like win-win to me.
Depending on your level of self-control and person financial awareness, you don't really need to. A more advanced Mustachian really doesn't have to care where money comes from or when, and doesn't really need a budget. But for someone like me, with only a few thousand in savings, variable income, and debt, living on last month's income changed everything. Now that I know exactly how much I have, I'm totally comfortable dropping $1,700 into debt and savings on the first of the month. If I didn't have this assurance, there's no way I could do this. Besides, if you already have a checking account buffer, you are essentially living on last months (or several months) income, you just don't call it that. Essentially, you're not waiting on a paycheck to make a purchase, you just using money you already have. Same concept.
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One of the things I found lacking in both Mint and YNAB is the ability to forecast well. So, I made my own cash forecasting tool, and you can use it for free :)
http://forecast.calcitout.com
let me know what you think, it's still in beta.
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Well I suppose that I am living paycheck to paycheck in the sense that I don't have $8,000 sitting in my checking account right now. I'd rather send that money to a credit card balance than leave it 'waiting' for a bill to pay. 1 month's expenses in cash would pay off two of the lowest credit card balances I have. After that 1 months' expenses would pay off my student loan. After that.... etc. In other words, debt is the priority.
I also use google calendar for all my bill scheduling, which is why I'm trying to figure out if YNAB will actually be useful to me.
All you have to do is make sure your overbudgeted amount is less than or equal to your anticipated income for the month.
It's not designed to be used that way, but an advanced user certainly could use the software in that way to minimize the interest paid on their debt.
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I have used Mint.com for a really long time, and since it works with almost all of our accounts, it's good for getting an overall picture of how investments, net worth, and account balances are doing, all at once, minimal entering of info. needed. Handy for monitoring 10+ accounts and checking for fraud. I have taken a brief look at YNAB, and I think I already do essentially the same thing with a massive series of Google spreadsheets that link together and project numbers out 10+ years.
We are not living paycheck to paycheck, never have. We keep about one month's expenses in the brokerage (checking) account at the end of each month, so if a paycheck is less than expected (husband is hourly) or delayed for some weird reason, or if an unexpected bill occurs (like new tires or something) we basically have our emergency fund at hand and don't have to pull anything out of savings. In fact, we have never (touch wood) had to touch our 'emergency fund' savings because of this buffer of funds.
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I couldn't find the value in it for me, so I deleted YNAB.
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I've been using Mint since late 2010. I like being able to see everything in one place, with all transactions automatically input, and for the most part, categorized appropriately. I find it particularly helpful for tracking spending history and net worth, as well as keeping an eye on my credit card usage. When I first used it, having never calculated it before, I was dismayed to discover that my net worth was negative. Watching my net worth grow through Mint has been a great motivator for me.
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YNAB seems like a useful program, but I like Mint's automatic transaction download and categorization. My main complaint with Mint is that budgets cannot be made for future months. If your expenses and income are fairly regular, that is not a major issue.
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I couldn't find the value in it for me, so I deleted mint.
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I've been using mint since Sept 2011 and YNAB since Feb 2012. I continue to use both, but YNAB is my daily tool that I couldn't live without, while I check mint once every week or two just to go in and look at my investments section. That's really the only thing mint does for me that YNAB doesn't. Mint automatically uploads your investment information and shows you your current value in each account and the total. I like looking at the graph and seeing the upward trend. I've mimicked that in YNAB by tracking our TSP and IRA accounts as Off-Budget accounts and then going into Reports and looking at it there, but I only update those numbers monthly so it's not quite as much fun as mint (which is daily). However, I've also had multiple issues with mint not syncing correctly, and have recently run into a new one which affects my investments. :-/
I absolutely love YNAB and cannot say enough good things about it. I find it to be infinitely more flexible than mint, and not nearly as clunky. If you want to add money to a budget category, you click on the appropriate box, enter the number and you're done. In mint, you have to go to the budget tab, click on "details" of the category you want to edit, enter the number, click done, and wait for it to reload. Very annoying when you want to set up a new budget at the beginning of the month. Mint is good for hands-off tracking, but terrible as a budgeting software.
One thing I love about YNAB that I haven't read anyone yet mention is the Reports section. In here, you can look at your spending trends by category, by account (checking vs. cash), by month, etc. My favorite is the Net Worth page (of course). Once you have enough data, you can compare this May's spending to last May's spending, or this quarter's spending to last quarter's spending. I used to love mint's visual charts, but YNAB revamped their Reports section with YNAB4 that came out last summer and now it's very user-friendly and very flexible. I've also been extremely impressed with YNAB's customer service- they are stellar and outstanding and I can't say enough good things about them. They also solicit feedback for suggestions/improvements, and the owner, Jesse, periodically sends out updates and basic courses with a great writing style and sense of humor. I personally do forecast my budget since DH and I have extremely regular income. I've actually budgeted out through April 2014 since we have a project we want to complete, and I can gaze at our expected net worth six months from now. :-) I would definitely at least try YNAB. If it doesn't work for you, then fine, but I think you're missing out if you don't even try it.
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I tried Mint and hated it. I very much prefer hand entering every transaction. How are you supposed to catch fraud when you allow the bank to enter stuff for you? Also, it never tracked the net worth properly, and one of our retirement accounts would not automatically update. Basically it had far too many glitches for my way of life.
Just started using YNAB at the beginning of the year, and after an adjustment period I'm a convert. I enter my transactions, which I like. It tracks everything in my budget, and also tells me how much is left in each category. The reconciliation is great, as is the reporting tools.
I'm curious; how does this differ from using an excel sheet? You input all of your transactions manually and then allocate them towards your budget/reconcile with your banque statements.
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Try it yourself and see... free trial and all :) It started as an excel spreadsheet 10 years ago, and evolved constantly since, it would take days for an experienced excel programmer to create something even remotely comparable to YNAB... for the $60 it costs, save the countless hours and just start using something nicely polished with Dropbox & Mobile Phone capabilities :)
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We started YNAB this month and really like it. Initially, I downloaded the free copy and used it to set up a budget and collect data on our spending. When I got the iPhone apps to work, my wife totally got into it; she is very good about receipts and loves data. We don't spend that much, I thought. The videos, free classes, and some of the blogs can be helpful in using YNAB as it is intended: when money comes in, we have a short discussion, and give it a job. Pay attention to the budget categories, not how much is in the checking account. Build up a buffer so you place this month's income in next month's available income. YNAB has pre-set budget categories, but it is simple to make your own. It keeps track of your categories over the year. We are interested in autopilot budgeting with accounts paid by checking or our points credit card. We keep some cash and have set up cash accounts on YNAB to monitor that spending. Way better for us than a spread sheet. I enter our asset values monthly in off-budget accounts so we can see a monthly tally of net worth. YNAB is worth the $54 we paid. Even if my wife didn't buy into it, I would use it as it keeps track of everything you enter, encourages budget planning, and is sensible and very personal to our needs. We don't use Mint because we are unwilling to share our passwords.
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I tried Mint and hated it. I very much prefer hand entering every transaction. How are you supposed to catch fraud when you allow the bank to enter stuff for you? Also, it never tracked the net worth properly, and one of our retirement accounts would not automatically update. Basically it had far too many glitches for my way of life.
Just started using YNAB at the beginning of the year, and after an adjustment period I'm a convert. I enter my transactions, which I like. It tracks everything in my budget, and also tells me how much is left in each category. The reconciliation is great, as is the reporting tools.
I did use a spreadsheet for years with much success, but I've found that YNAB eliminates some steps and I like the format of the results better. Just a personal preference, I say each person should do what works best for them. I do still use my spreadsheet for some things like keeping track of my asset allocation and calculating how much needs to be contributed to retirement accounts.
I'm curious; how does this differ from using an excel sheet? You input all of your transactions manually and then allocate them towards your budget/reconcile with your banque statements.
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Read the comments. Got to work. Newbee first impressions. Mint's easy transaction downloads was a great feature and it categorized spending pretty well. For those of us getting on the path to being frugal bad asses, getting a nice overview of how the money was being spent will help the family talk about the money trail and how we WANT the money to be spent. I pulled this together in about .5 on Mint and even had the better half come over and load in the passwords to her credit cards (the black box opens!). YNAB really can't do this so nicely and easily.
YNAB requires allot more effort at the start but I see how its "give your money jobs" can be the more effective planning tool. But to get a realistic starting budget, you have to have the where is the money going nailed down and Mint does a better job on that front.
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BTTT for a question. I stumbled upon this forum when researching an iPhone 5 budgeting and expense tracking tool for my sister in law. Her husband rececently passed away and handled all the finances. She has a 5 yr old and gave birth to their twins 3 weeks early the day after his funeral. Very stressful times for her. I know... extremely tragic.
Although I have many issues to solve for her, I'll keep this simple for now. YNAB vs Mint.com or other budgeting tool.... I feel as though YNAB will yield more favorable results but given she will be going back to work in 1.5 months and has 3 kids I don't see her having time to enter every expense. I feel like mint is a better option just to take the load off the manual entry. She has little experience with financial IQ and tends to be a spender so lots of work to do. This tool is the first step.
Any thoughts on YNAB/Mint/other given her situation and lack of time, has to be easy?
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BTTT for a question. I stumbled upon this forum when researching an iPhone 5 budgeting and expense tracking tool for my sister in law. Her husband rececently passed away and handled all the finances. She has a 5 yr old and gave birth to their twins 3 weeks early the day after his funeral. Very stressful times for her. I know... extremely tragic.
Although I have many issues to solve for her, I'll keep this simple for now. YNAB vs Mint.com or other budgeting tool.... I feel as though YNAB will yield more favorable results but given she will be going back to work in 1.5 months and has 3 kids I don't see her having time to enter every expense. I feel like mint is a better option just to take the load off the manual entry. She has little experience with financial IQ and tends to be a spender so lots of work to do. This tool is the first step.
Any thoughts on YNAB/Mint/other given her situation and lack of time, has to be easy?
She needs to be committed if she is going to change or improve her finances.
That commitment is required in order to use YNAB and get any benefit out of it, since you must do manual data entry. It really only takes 5-10 seconds per transaction. Once you make a purchase at a location, it will remember the location, payee name, and category, only requiring you to update the amount. You can setup recurring transactions to automatically populate. It really does not take THAT much time.
If she is not going to be committed to getting her shit together, then she should use Mint. It will send her nagging emails that she has overspent her budget amount that she can ignore. It will let her set a budget with money she has yet to receive, hoping she actually receives what she expected. But it doesn't require the person to actually do anything about it.
Ultimately, it's up to her, and how committed she is.
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Right now we use a whiteboard and plan stuff a month ahead on it, then clean and repeat. Don't use mint as my pre-paid walmart card is not supported an that is how we pay bills and order stuff online. Everything else is in cash, but since i have a background in accounting and auditing it's easier for me to just ledger it out myself. After debts are paid we may look into plunking down $60 for a program but until then my vote is for DIY efforts as they work best for me.
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I have read several places now that YNAB looks forward and Mint looks back. I don't get what that means. As far as I can tell both are just a means of inputting your budget and then tracking your money against those budgets. Is there something I'm missing?
I personally use an Excel spreadsheet. I did just recently create a Mint account just to check it out. I like that I can quickly see what my budget looks like (or at least pretty close), before I sit down to update my actual budget. Sometimes I'm not quick enough for my wife (I thought once every couple of weeks was good enough) and she keeps getting on me to update it so she knows how much we have left in various categories. Now, with Mint, it automatically puts things in the right spots most of the time. I can quickly adjust them if they are wrong. My wife can now look at Mint and see sooner how much she has left for the month. I don't see this advantage coming from YNAB.
I will agree with what several people have said, they do seem like different tools. I guess that is what I am doing as well, I'm budgeting in Excel, and using Mint as a quick one stop shop to get a good idea of where we are at any given moment.
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I have read several places now that YNAB looks forward and Mint looks back. I don't get what that means. As far as I can tell both are just a means of inputting your budget and then tracking your money against those budgets. Is there something I'm missing?
I personally use an Excel spreadsheet. I did just recently create a Mint account just to check it out. I like that I can quickly see what my budget looks like (or at least pretty close), before I sit down to update my actual budget. Sometimes I'm not quick enough for my wife (I thought once every couple of weeks was good enough) and she keeps getting on me to update it so she knows how much we have left in various categories. Now, with Mint, it automatically puts things in the right spots most of the time. I can quickly adjust them if they are wrong. My wife can now look at Mint and see sooner how much she has left for the month. I don't see this advantage coming from YNAB.
I will agree with what several people have said, they do seem like different tools. I guess that is what I am doing as well, I'm budgeting in Excel, and using Mint as a quick one stop shop to get a good idea of where we are at any given moment.
Mint lets you make a budget based on income you *expect* to receive, and then tells you how you did based on that estimate. Backward looking, and not necessarily accurate.
YNAB has you make a budget based on money you have in the bank. You can only spend what you actually have. It has rules in place that force you to adjust your budget if you overspend, as that effects other categories. They also push living on a buffer where you don't touch your income until the next month, and use it to live off of in the next month. Forward looking.
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Sometimes I'm not quick enough for my wife (I thought once every couple of weeks was good enough) and she keeps getting on me to update it so she knows how much we have left in various categories.
What is she making the spending decisions based on?
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I like that I can quickly see what my budget looks like (or at least pretty close), before I sit down to update my actual budget. Sometimes I'm not quick enough for my wife (I thought once every couple of weeks was good enough) and she keeps getting on me to update it so she knows how much we have left in various categories. Now, with Mint, it automatically puts things in the right spots most of the time. I can quickly adjust them if they are wrong. My wife can now look at Mint and see sooner how much she has left for the month. I don't see this advantage coming from YNAB.
If you enter in your spending with YNAB once a month, it will never be flexible and help with real-time decision making because the information you gave it is not up to date nor is the information you are using to make decisions. Your wife sounds like she "gets" YNAB by asking for more up to date category balances, which is what drives decisions in YNAB as opposed to bank accounts. YNAB is not a "reconcile at the end of the month" kind of a budget, but a dynamic spending plan that allows you to adjust your priorities mid-month while assuring that you still have enough cash to cover it.
Personal opinion: by asking your budgeting program to be completely automated, you have taken yourself out of the decision making process. By doing so, you have eliminated the need to think about your spending and will have a harder time trying to change habits because they are more abstract and impersonal.
People freak out when they hear that there is no automatic upload, but that's a good part of why YNAB works so well. If you want, PocketSense will help you import your bank statements (once a week at a minimum would be my recommendation). However, the app is super easy to use and even manually inputting hardly takes any time at all. It's like cleaning the house - a little upkeep throughout the week makes the large cleaning job easier as well.
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We use Mint, it works fine for us; We have a high savings rate, and probably would whether or not we used Mint. More then anything, Mint is a nice tool to check after the fact (or during the month) to quickly see where we spent money in broad categories.
Since YNAB seems to come so enthiastically, I would like to try it out, see if it helps any, or if it would help us save even more. Here are a few questions:
From what I"ve heard/read, it seems like YNAB implements zero-based budgetting, and an electronic "envelope system" but with a nice interface. I think how we use Mint is already close to this idea (as long as we meet each of our budget categories and don't go into "red"). Given that, Are there equally good alternatives to YNAB that come at a lower cost, or are free?
If there aren't good alternatives, how does the free trial work with their sporadic sales? I'd rather pay $20 for the software, so could I try the 31 day trial, and if I like it buy it when it is on sale?
You don't achieve a high savings rate by spending $60 on software you might not need :)
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@CanuckExpat - I just sent you a PM
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I tried Mint and at first REALLY liked it. Everything was imported flawlessly, nice graphics, etc.
Then I started getting it's notifications.
You're net worth is "xxx." You should....
I didn't like the idea that it was constantly telling me what to do, which I guess the sheeple may appreciate however I do not.
The last straw was, "You haven't spent enough money in the restaurant category."
Excuse me? The last thing I need is some glitzy bullshit telling me what to do with my money, especially in a nonessential category. Fuck that, deleted.
Sorry, no experience with YNAB yet!
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I tried Mint and at first REALLY liked it. Everything was imported flawlessly, nice graphics, etc.
Then I started getting it's notifications.
You're net worth is "xxx." You should....
I didn't like the idea that it was constantly telling me what to do, which I guess the sheeple may appreciate however I do not.
The last straw was, "You haven't spent enough money in the restaurant category."
Excuse me? The last thing I need is some glitzy bullshit telling me what to do with my money, especially in a nonessential category. Fuck that, deleted.
Sorry, no experience with YNAB yet!
Mint is a free service. You are not the customer, the paying advertisers are.
Just ignore those tips.
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BTTT for a question. I stumbled upon this forum when researching an iPhone 5 budgeting and expense tracking tool for my sister in law. Her husband rececently passed away and handled all the finances. She has a 5 yr old and gave birth to their twins 3 weeks early the day after his funeral. Very stressful times for her. I know... extremely tragic.
Although I have many issues to solve for her, I'll keep this simple for now. YNAB vs Mint.com or other budgeting tool.... I feel as though YNAB will yield more favorable results but given she will be going back to work in 1.5 months and has 3 kids I don't see her having time to enter every expense. I feel like mint is a better option just to take the load off the manual entry. She has little experience with financial IQ and tends to be a spender so lots of work to do. This tool is the first step.
Any thoughts on YNAB/Mint/other given her situation and lack of time, has to be easy?
I would just say that for someone who tends to be a spender, YNAB could be a financial lifesaver. Once you get the program set up and figure out how to use it, which took me a little time, I admit, it's great. Entering your expenses takes no time at all - it's usually a few receipts per day, or you can do it on your smartphone at the time of purchase. The priceless aspect for me is having to decide what "job" every dollar has, and then to either spend within that amount or reallocate the funds. Since there's a free month's trial, why not have her get it and help her figure it out?
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I prefer YNAB, something about giving my bank info does not sit well with me. With YNAB, I enjoy entering every transaction...plus I noticed my savings % has gone way up since using it.
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We are using YNAB. I was always the one with the 'budget in his head' and it could be a source of friction for us. Wifey would ask if we had enough for x, I'd say 'not right now' - then I'm the one who is denying our children their new clothes or whatever. Whenever we talked about it or planned the budget we always agreed, but in the moment it made me the bad guy.
With the YNAB smartphone thingy I am out of the loop when she wants to buy something. Just check the budget on your phone and make the decision. We work out the budget together. Takes the fight right out of things - not that we ever fought much, but removing that source of friction was worth the price all on its own.
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PapaJoe: Your sister in law may find that YNAB is actually easier to use. I enter transactions at the gas pump, grocery store, etc. on my phone. It takes very little time, 30 seconds or so, and she can look at the available balance in each category before going in to a store. If you see you have $100, you won't spend $150. If you can learn the program and help her set it up, it may be great for her. Enter her category amounts once a month, then nothing but entries for the rest of the month. She can reconfigure if she's over or under spending in a category as she learns what she really needs. Reconcile at the end of the month, and she's ready to go for the following month.
It works great for us, my husband travels for work and he doesn't have to ask me how much is in the accounts, it syncs between our PC, his Apple phone, and my Android. A very good tool.
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I just started using Mint and it works fine for me. Syncs good with all my savings, checking, investments, and loans.
I haven't really figuring out the budgeting portions but that's not my concerned. I have an x number of spending each month, y number of income, and my only concern each month is what the difference comes out to be.
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I find it interesting that with all the discussion of alternatives, no one's mentioned Quicken. I've been using Quicken for years. Yes, you have to pay for it, but I only buy the next version when the old one stops working (every 3-4 years). I link my accounts, it downloads and imports transactions, I just have to fine tune. You can do budgeting, not that I've figured it out. Really, I use very little of Quicken's functionality, but I'm perfectly happy with it.
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I find it interesting that with all the discussion of alternatives, no one's mentioned Quicken. I've been using Quicken for years. Yes, you have to pay for it, but I only buy the next version when the old one stops working (every 3-4 years). I link my accounts, it downloads and imports transactions, I just have to fine tune. You can do budgeting, not that I've figured it out. Really, I use very little of Quicken's functionality, but I'm perfectly happy with it.
I've never had a good experience with Quicken myself. Too fiddly, and it miscategorizes everything forcing me to spend half a day fixing it.
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I find it interesting that with all the discussion of alternatives, no one's mentioned Quicken. I've been using Quicken for years. Yes, you have to pay for it, but I only buy the next version when the old one stops working (every 3-4 years). I link my accounts, it downloads and imports transactions, I just have to fine tune. You can do budgeting, not that I've figured it out. Really, I use very little of Quicken's functionality, but I'm perfectly happy with it.
I've never had a good experience with Quicken myself. Too fiddly, and it miscategorizes everything forcing me to spend half a day fixing it.
How is that worse than entering every transaction? To each their own.
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I find it interesting that with all the discussion of alternatives, no one's mentioned Quicken. I've been using Quicken for years. Yes, you have to pay for it, but I only buy the next version when the old one stops working (every 3-4 years). I link my accounts, it downloads and imports transactions, I just have to fine tune. You can do budgeting, not that I've figured it out. Really, I use very little of Quicken's functionality, but I'm perfectly happy with it.
That part I made bold is what pisses me off. Intuit/Quicken designs that into it; YNAB will always work. And it seems silly to me to talk about Quicken for budgeting because while it supposedly has "budgeting features," not many have "figured it out." Because Quicken is NOT for budgeting anymore than a Hummer is designed for going to the grocery store.
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I find it interesting that with all the discussion of alternatives, no one's mentioned Quicken. I've been using Quicken for years. Yes, you have to pay for it, but I only buy the next version when the old one stops working (every 3-4 years). I link my accounts, it downloads and imports transactions, I just have to fine tune. You can do budgeting, not that I've figured it out. Really, I use very little of Quicken's functionality, but I'm perfectly happy with it.
That part I made bold is what pisses me off. Intuit/Quicken designs that into it; YNAB will always work. And it seems silly to me to talk about Quicken for budgeting because while it supposedly has "budgeting features," not many have "figured it out." Because Quicken is NOT for budgeting anymore than a Hummer is designed for going to the grocery store.
Very correct! It's planned obsolescence does piss me off, however I also appreciate the fact that they don't change the layout on me whenever they feel like it. (Think Facebook.) It works for me though.
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I love using Mint. I like that I can be lazy by not putting in transactions and still know exactly what I'm spending. YNAB has automatic syncing, but I never managed to figure out how to do it in a satisfactory manner before I got annoyed and my 30 day trial ran out.
I don't use the budgeting feature for Mint. It's too clunky. Instead, I estimate my expenses in a separate spreadsheet that I can move around to my heart's content.
YNAB does help you live on last month's income, but we have our checking accounts set up in a particular way to make sure we meet our saving and spending goals.
We have two checking accounts: Fixed Expenses and Variable Expenses. Each paycheck gets split according to the budget. We have an idea of our weekly spend rate, so we just use that as a judge for how we're doing throughout the month. We take care of big, lumpy expenses separately.
At the same time, we send off money into Save-to-Spend and Savings/Investments accounts. We do our best to minimize expenses throughout the month, and leftover money from the Fixed Account goes towards Savings/Investments, and leftover money from the Variable Account goes to Save-to-Spend to be used for buying bigger purchases like a deep freezer.
Now that this system is set up, we only have to move money once it piles up in a particular account.
It works for my husband and me.
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I had some major problems with Mint about 4 years back. My bank did some type of systems changover that Mint didn't like. My accounts stopped syncing.
After a few months of customer support back-and-forth, they finally fixed it. But the only way to fix it was to delete my bank information and start over. This caused me to lose all of my history with that bank, and screwed up all of my historical reporting.
Never again.
I switched to Quicken, and have been very happy with it. It's worth the money and the 3-4 year upgrade requirement IMO. Syncing just works, your history isn't at risk, and you get tons of detail. I personally like their "Current Spend vs. Avg Spend" reporting instead of budgeting feature.
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The priceless aspect for me is having to decide what "job" every dollar has, and then to either spend within that amount or reallocate the funds.
I put together my own Excel spreadsheet to allocate my money to categories because the ideas of "give each dollar a job" and "save for a rainy day" resonated with me but I don't want to give 60 of them the job of buying this software if I could write a spreadsheet that would suit us. I get that YNAB has much more functionality than a spreadsheet, but why pay for functionality I don't need? What I am doing now is working so far. I keep refining it. Maybe some day I'll try a trial of YNAB but for now I'm pleased with my solution.
That said, we have been using it somewhat more for tracking and somewhat less for limit setting, but after 7 months of doing this and watching our July budget get derailed by a (very useful, admittedly) $200 birthday present we bought on a semi-whim, my husband is finally starting to buy into the idea of seeing how much we have in a category BEFORE he goes shopping. We currently have $228 for home maintenance for August and he needs to decide what is a priority and what can wait because we can't buy everything he wants (not needs) to get.
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I find it interesting that with all the discussion of alternatives, no one's mentioned Quicken. I've been using Quicken for years. Yes, you have to pay for it, but I only buy the next version when the old one stops working (every 3-4 years). I link my accounts, it downloads and imports transactions, I just have to fine tune. You can do budgeting, not that I've figured it out. Really, I use very little of Quicken's functionality, but I'm perfectly happy with it.
That part I made bold is what pisses me off. Intuit/Quicken designs that into it; YNAB will always work. And it seems silly to me to talk about Quicken for budgeting because while it supposedly has "budgeting features," not many have "figured it out." Because Quicken is NOT for budgeting anymore than a Hummer is designed for going to the grocery store.
Very correct! It's planned obsolescence does piss me off, however I also appreciate the fact that they don't change the layout on me whenever they feel like it. (Think Facebook.) It works for me though.
If there were a Quicken competitor with as much functionality and lower price (and no planned obsolescence) we'd take it in a heartbeat. Meanwhile the planned obsolescence cost, while annoying, is less than what my time is worth to maintain something similar. YMMV. And yes, budgeting in Quicken is best done in Excel. ;)
Quicken's Lifetime Planner isn't mentioned much (and could be better), but given that all one's information is already in place it does a nice job showing likely future asset levels and facilitating "what if?" analysis.
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Echoing the above on Mint, we live well below our means, and in fact intentionally float our spending. You mean I can get an interest free loan from the credit card for up to ~55 days, and get paid 1.65% cash back? And invest in the meantime (or cash flow the bill when it comes, or use the emergency fund, it's all perspective)? Excellent. So Mint works well for us, and it's free.
Mint has some quirks though: some transactions don't pull in properly, the site is slow and a bit buggy, the dashboard doesn't display things quite the way I want. But it's free, and YNAB is not. So I pull data from Mint monthly to parse into spreadsheets the way I want them. I've considered using a paid-for service but can't justify the expense when I can make everything else work for me well enough for free.