YNAB: Budgeting & Finance 4+

Most budget programs are set it and forget it. Which is the problem: once you set it, you forget it and you drift away from your spending plan. The beauty of YNAB is that it is flexible and dynamic, and allows you to adjust your spending plan as you need to. I found the program itself is well designed, reliable, and easy to use. The only issues I’ve had were with banks making it hard to set up connectivity. But YNAB did a good job of communicating how they were working to resolve the issues. In the beginning it does take a few hours to set up categories and get banks connected, mainly because it is so customizable, but once it is set up it is virtually effortless to maintain. Do watch the tutorials first on how to set it up. But then I spend 1 to 3 minutes each morning reviewing the previous days expenditures, and maybe 10 minutes a month reconciling my accounts. It shows monthly and quarterly reports so I can see trends over time. The only tricky bit is understanding how YNAB budgets your credit card purchases. That is not intuitive the way the rest of the program is. But they produce tutorials that explain it well. The web platform is easiest to use for setting up your categories, and for reconciliation. But the phone app is essential for quickly checking your remaining budgets on the go, especially as you get close to your next payday. I highly recommend it for those who want to be in charge of their spending habits.

Hey Catherine! Thanks so much for taking time to write up (and update) such a thorough review of YNAB, we especially appreciate your take on Direct Import and Credit Cards (both areas we're working on improving for our users!). We've also made considerable improvements to our onboarding flow since your review, so for anyone reading this, expect a more simplified startup 🤩

We have a whole team of specialists on hand to help any time you run into issues (and you probably know this 😀), but you can reach out to us at help@ynab.com anytime, or by clicking on the question mark in the lower right hand corner of your budget page 🙌 Happy Budgeting! -Caitlin P @ynab

The app/methodology/paradigm(s) have really revolutionized the way I approach my own finances and i cannot recommend it enough from that regard as a service & function. I have budgeted myself for well over a decade and have done alright, but always felt there was some missing piece or rather a “hole” that seemed to be getting in my way. This app/way of tagging and budgeting really helped me see in a very adult way, the ways in which I was failing to connect some financial dots and keep myself from doing as well as I should have been; it made sense after I really pressed myself to drop my bad thinking that I had developed to try and work around the natural holes in a standard budget logic.

Having said all of that, I find myself using my iPad Pro to access the web client, as the app itself is so kiddy and limited that it makes it actually harder to digest the information presented and make the most sense of it. So much information but it’s all so “big” that you can’t see the big picture, almost simply because the text and forms are so LARGE. Really the app could be and needs to be as feature-rich and dense as the web app; basically take the web app and adapt it to be touch targets and color coded like the app is. It could be so much BETTER than the web interface with all the screen real estate on the iPad and the easy entry and basic structure they have in place for it already. I really look forward to the iPad app “growing up.”

Hi there! Thanks for leaving us a review and we're so glad you've enjoyed YNAB 🙌 It's really great to hear your feedback about the iPad app—it's been a couple of years since your review, and we've made significant improvements to it since then 🎉

We're always looking at ways to increase feature parity between platforms, and we even have some mobile only features! Check those out here: https://docs.youneedabudget.com/article/1752-mobile-only-features

Happy budgeting 🙂 -Caitlin P @ynab

I started my budgeting journey about 4 years ago using a free app. I was budgeting to zero every month but I continue to blow my budget and live on the credit card float. I could never figure out what I was doing wrong. I was paying extra money to pay off debt and everything looked right on paper but I kept having to borrow from savings and I just couldn’t figure out what was wrong. In a desperate search to figure out why my budget wasn’t working, I started watching video reviews of budgeting apps. I found YNAB and I will never look back. I learned I was budgeting money before I earned it and then having to float expenses until payday and I wasn’t embracing my true Expenses. Hence my continuing to blow my budget month after month. Now I’m working on saving enough to be a full month ahead in my pay and I have accounted for all my true expenses. Absolutely life changing. Two months in and I haven’t blown my budget at all. I realized I was paying way too much a month extra on my debt. Now that I know what my true expenses are I know how much extra I can actually afford to put towards debt. I haven’t slept better in years. It’s such a relief. Best app ever!!

Update: A couple years in and I am now living on last months income and I have enough money to be several months ahead. I have paid off all most all my debt, apart from my mortgage and I couldn’t be more happy this app. YNAB for the win!!

Hey Bella! Thanks for this review update! I'm so glad to hear you're debt\-free except the mortgage and more than a month ahead. Congratulations! Keep up that awesome work \- we can't wait to hear what you do next! \- Kat @ YNAB