How long did it take you to "jive" with YNAB? I've been doing it since October and it just feels like a chore and no useful information, well, only forehead-slapping information when I realize how much I spent on x, y or z in the last month. I haven't been able to make the mental leap from the way I used to track (YMOYL-style, after the fact with the three monthly questions) to the more active, future-looking attitude required to maximize YNAB. Ideas?
Are you using it to budget or are you just using it as a checkbook register? Are you spending based on category balances or spending based on your account balance and then moving money to a category to cover it?
Wanting to use it more to budget, but functionally it's serving as a checkbook register. We have plenty of cash on hand, so we just spend. I don't mean to make us sound extravagant, we're relatively frugal, but I'd like to focus on the spending more planfully so that we can defeat some debt (a HELOC) and also open up the possibility of one or both of us working part-time. And "just spending" ain't gettin' us there. Perhaps YNAB wasn't the best tool to choose for us, or maybe I'm just not used to it yet.
I think YNAB would be perfect for you but, with respect, you're using it wrong! ;)
You say you "just spend" - that's the problem right there. You're not supposed to do that. You should start over like this:
Take the money you have on hand right now, and assign it to categories - the things you need to spend before you get paid next. Put enough in each category you create to cover all the stuff you HAVE to spend on (bills, food etc) and all the nice stuff you spend on yourselves (going out, takeaway, beer, whatever) and if you are flush enough to have some left over don't use it to increase your spending budgets, but put it into savings categories for things that might sneak up on you such as 'Unexpected Home Repairs' or 'Holiday Somewhere Sometime' or 'Christmas Next Year' or whatever.
Now, whenever you are tempted to spend, don't just spend without thinking about it because, hey, you're reasonably flush with cash right now. i.e., stop "just spending". Check the YNAB budget first. Do you have money to spend in this category? Great, spend it. If you don't, tough luck. Either move some money from another category into the one you want to spend, or don't spend.
The point is that if you live within the budget you set, it works, and you start to build up healthy sums of cash in your various 'future spending' buckets, aka your saving buckets. All your pennies have a job to do and you don't "just spend" them on whatever you like.
This way you get out of looking at what you have been spending, and start assigning how to save your money as it comes in. Hope this helps!