But YNAB is a completely different animal when it comes to budgeting and behavior modification. I know there are lot of folks out there that say they are already good savers... well, so was I, but I still find YNAB to be a great tool for staying on track and improving on already good stats. My nearly one income family of 4 (about $85-90K gross) lives well on half of my salary, we max out retirement accounts, and YNAB helps us stay on track and be aware better than any other look-back system I've used. The next closest good model was one that I maintained in excel, but that was when I was single and without kids. The mobility aspect of YNAB is definitely worth it, IMO.
I agree. The approaches is quite different from Mint, which just tracks spending. YNAB tries to get you to project your expenses.
I love YNAB (and because I'm a student, it's free!). But ironically, I don't use it the way it was intended--I budget based on this month's income, not last month's. I do this because I want my YNAB information to be tax accurate.
But the two things I love about YNAB are
- So long as you spend based on your budget, and not based on your bank statements or credit cards, if you budget money for something, that money exists somewhere in your accounts. It doesn't matter where it is, it's there. This is especially helpful to me because I have almost 20 bank accounts (and actually keep money in 8 of them)
- You can use the budgeting aspect to know exactly how much you have left over at the end of the month to throw at investments (or debt, if you are paying down debt). YNAB makes it very easy for you to maximize the money you throw at investments and/or debt. There is no way that without the help of YNAB I could as easily manage having almost 20 bank accounts and having to save up to pay rent and school fees three times a year (I live on campus) while maximizing my investment contributions as I do now.
why so many bank accounts?
I chase bank account signup bonuses. I've got five such accounts right now.
I also have 5 savings accounts with Ally because before YNAB, I used to have separate accounts for when I saved up for certain expenses (I live in on campus housing, so I end up paying rent three times a year).
I abandoned those when I started using YNAB, and also because I opened a rewards checking account with 3% interest if I fufill some requirements that are very easy to automate with Amex Serve.
I also have a UFB checking account so that if my Amex Serve balance isn't large enough to pay off a credit card bill, I load the serve with my UFB debit card that earns 1 AA mile per $2 spent, and then use Serve to pay off the cc. This generally only occurs when I end up funding a bank account with a CC, as I normally spend less than half of hte $1000 online CC load limit for Amex Serve.
I have Santander which has an ongoing bonus of $20/month if you meet thee DD requirements. Santander requires a checking and savings account for this.
I have a Bank of America eBanking account, which is closed to new customers. I keep this open so I can get an extra $20/yr from my Better Balance Rewards credit card (the bonus is for depositing the rewards from the BBR to a BoA account).
I have a Mango Money account yielding 6% interest on $5000 and incurring $36/yr in fees
I have a CHarles Schwab account for internatioanl travel, which was my primary checking until I opened the 3% rewards checking.
If you think that's bad, I have something like 80 accounts in YNAB. Every CC gets one. Amex Serve gets one. I have a Target REDcard, Amex campus Edition, and Chime card. Every mileage program I have an account with gets an account with YNAB, with each mile valued at 1 cent (I exclude these accoutns from my net worth, of course). Every cash back program from each credit card gets its own account. Of course my brokerage accounts are included too - I have a taxable, Roth IRA, and traditional IRA. I have some old 529s that I opened for manufactured spending purposes with Evolve money.
I think that's about it? Haha