YNAB for dummies

[SoonToBeSix]

Please can someone explain in detail but also in very simple terms what ynab is and how it works , can I use it on my PC and iPhone/ iPad? Also how much it costs . TIA

[SoonToBeSix]

Bump

[ValiumQueen]

I think it is £40. You can have a free trial for a month, and we are two weeks in and think it is ace. A bit confusing initially. We both have apps on our phones and these are free and get updated so if I spend something then hubby will see I have for example bought petrol. Sorry I cannot give more info.

[lilacclery]

I'm a newbie to ynab. It's a budgeting system whereby you assign your money to categories as and when you get income, then if you wish to purchase shoes, you check your shoe category and not your bank balance if the money is there you can spend it, if not you must borrow from another category to balance it or overspend and let it come out of next months allocation to shoes.

[PixieofCatan]

I paid £20ish for it in a Steam sale and then found the code so that we didn't have to keep opening Steam to use it.

You can use it across different platforms, it syncs using dropbox.

It takes a while to set up, but as long as you maintain it as you spend (or as money comes out of your account) then it doesn't take time to maintain, DP and I update ours anywhere between once a week to once a month and it takes from ten minutes to an hour depending on how much spending we've done, how long it's been, etc.

As Lila said, you categorise all of your spending, and it relates to a budget plan. The idea is that you budget for every penny that comes your way, so that it doesn't get left behind, even if it's in an 'overflow' (which we use to top up our categories if they run low).

You can download bank statements and upload them automatically to YNAB, or you can manually input your spending into it. I prefer that method tbh, as it makes me aware of when/where I am spending, but the uploading is much easier!

[lilacclery]

I put a discount link for ynab at beginning of June frugaleer thread - got it for €34.15 with that.

[SoonToBeSix]

Thanks, I will definitely give it a go , I am rubbish at frittering money away and not knowing what I spent it on.

[PixieofCatan]

YNAB is on sale on Steam at the moment for £7.49!

Just so people know :)

[blueVW]

We have been using it for a few months and swear by it. I can now see clearly how much money we hand over to our kids!

It takes a bit of getting used to and it's worth watching the tutorial videos or joining online tutorials.

[ExCinnamon]

I would like to use it but I'm a bit paranoid about financial data being stored in the cloud thingy. Without mobile use and only using the desktop version it is a bit pointless, or not?

[PixieofCatan]

ex You don't need to sync it, I didn't until recently and that was only because of DP wanting to log his on his PC. I don't use mobile versions of it at all, it's all on PC for me. I don't use it to track cash transactions though, more because I rarely use cash for transactions!

[blueVW]

I find the mobile tracking useful as we are out and about a lot and in particular it means we track coffees etc which were really adding up, but you could keep a diary and catch up just on desktop.

[redmapleleaves]

Pixie I bought it via Steam too, but couldn't work out where to get the code from. So am still doing it off Steam. but sometimes this modern world gets all too much...

[PixieofCatan]

red Took me a while to find it but I was getting so pissed off with opening it through steam that I didn't give up till I'd found the answer on some forum somewhere!

It's on YNAB itself. Go onto the "Help" menu, then to "About YNAB", there should be a "Copy Activation Key to Clipboard" button. Use that to copy it, and then paste it onto the downloaded 'trial' version :)

[lilacclery]

It's on sale on steam at the moment £7.49 I think is the price