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

My husband and I, over our 20 year relationship, did countless hours of deep tearful or frustrated conversations that turned into loving support about money and money values. This was complicated by my then-undiagnosed ADHD with dyscalculia, which made balancing budgets or perceiving what money was allocated where and when at a glance very challenging. We hacked together his spreadsheets and our envelope methods and m numerous bank checking and savings accounts with specific debit cards, and all the ups and downs with credit cards and student loans.
And then he died suddenly of a chronic illness in middle age, leaving me to figure out his spreadsheets on my own.
But then after doing some research and reading/viewing reviews and demos, lo and behold, YNAB app (online subscription form) was literally everything that my husband and I worked so very hard to invent ourselves, but with internal adding/subtracting, and interest calculators, and color coded graphical interfaces for at-a-glance knowledge of what is allocated where.
I am so happy & relieved (understatement!) that I can carry forward all the progress about financial awareness and responsibility that we accomplished together, with the help of this app! It truly is saving my life and my future during the chaos (mental and emotional) of early widowhood.
I’ve been using it daily since signing up a few months ago and it continues to exactly fit what I need!

Eliciel, thank you so much for sharing your story. Our hearts go out to you for the loss of your husband - it sounds like you made an amazing team. I'm so glad that you're here budgeting with us and that YNAB has been a supportive new way to continue on the same path of financial awareness you've been on. -Becca @ YNAB