A Love Letter to YNAB

My YNAB Love Story

Whenever I talk to people about You Need A Budget (YNAB), which is A LOT, I tell them how life changing it is. Ahh - it sounds so corny to call a budgeting app life changing. But, there is no other way to describe how impactful YNAB has been for me.

From Tracking to True Budgeting

I always thought I loved budgeting, but when I look back on things, I really just tracked my expenses. When I was in high school and college, I tracked all of my expenses in my checkbook register. I was often in the negative! Lol. I always spent more than I had. I moved a little from savings to cover my overspending. Birthday and Christmas money covered the rest. After college, I created an Excel checkbook register. I used a version of this tool for years. Again, just tracking expenses. I did the savings to checking back to savings shuffle every other month. The one thing I did right during these early years was track my credit card expenses in my checkbook register. Doing this at least gave me a clearer picture of how much money I had and how much I had spent. Sounds a little YNABish…

Other Apps Didn't Move the Needle

Ready to move from tracking expenses to budgeting, I tried using different apps like Mint and Goodbudget. They were fine, but the needle didn’t move. I was still moving money from savings to checking to cover overspending before we were paid again. I had this random general savings account, but I had no plans (or maybe a million plans) for that money.

Financially Stable but Still Confused

We trudged along. We certainly weren’t bad with money. We paid our credit card bills in full each month, we paid all of our bills on time, we saved for retirement, and we did some investing. I still feel like I was asking the same question every month: “Where did our money go??”

The YNAB Transformation

Enter YNAB! In August 2018, I was working a job I hated and had plenty of time on my hands during the day. I spent a week setting up our budget. There was definitely a learning curve, but the resources and training guides on YNAB’s website helped a ton. But, once it was set up, our lives were never the same! OK…I’m being a bit dramatic. But, for real…the way we budget, spend money, save money, and think about money has completely changed. Below are just some of the ways YNAB has changed our lives and views on money.

Five Ways YNAB Changed My Financial Life

1. We have clarity. I never wonder where our money goes. All transactions are tracked. I can run reports to see what we spent in certain categories.
2. We save intentionally. We don’t have a general savings account. We have budget categories for the things we want to save for in the future - vacation, auto maintenance, home maintenance, new technology, etc.
3. We don’t experience lifestyle creep. In the last 5 ½ years, we’ve each received promotions or pay increases. Because we have a plan for our money, we have not allowed lifestyle creep to set in. We have increased retirement savings and added other savings categories.
4. We have no spending guilt. We spend money guilt free. Because we think ahead about how we want to spend our money, we don’t feel guilty when we make a big purchase or splurge on something. And because of YNAB’s third rule (roll with the punches), if we have an unexpected purchase, we can cover it with money from another category without feeling guilty.
5. We embrace being YNAB broke. Because the budget categories, not our checking account, dictate how much we have to spend, we embrace being YNAB broke. We could have thousands in our checking account, but if we only have $15 left in dining out, we may choose to cook at home for the rest of the month. The budget helps reduce impulse spending because we know each dollar has a job. If we move the dollars sitting in our vacation category to dining out, it could impact when and where we go on vacation.

YNAB for Life

I can’t imagine using any other system to budget our money. My love for YNAB runs deep!