My feed
Premium

Please
or
to access all these features

Use our Cost of Living forum to discuss budgeting and energy saving with other users.

Cost of living

You Need a Budget software

46 replies

TheOnlyPink · 31/12/2014 09:10

Is on sale on steam until 1st Jan at 6am! Don't know the price in sterling, but it's €12. Just in case anyone was thinking of getting it but didn't want to pay the full price! Smile

OP posts:
Report
beastling · 31/12/2014 09:45

It says £7.49 on the uk site. Can someone explain to me why this might be worth it? DH and I making big money saving effort this year and wondered whether this would be of help! Sorry for the slight hijack OP!

Report
Living · 31/12/2014 12:16

This time last year DH and I were desperately waiting for payday every month, putting big expenses on the credit card (which was paid off every month but we were reliant on the credit) and had nothing saved towards big annual expenses such as car insurance and school fees (we're expats so not optional).

Now, despite not having a particularly easy year financially, we're 'buffered' which means we don't need to spend the salaries we get at the end of each month for any of that month's expenses and we only spend on the credit card if we have the money in our current account to cover it. We've just had Christmas and were paid one to two weeks ago and I have 2xour monthly income in the bank. We honestly had not far off zero this time last year.

That's down to the fact that YNAB gave us the power to control our money. DH in particular is absolutely rubbish with money YNAB has worked.

Most of our fights were money related so we also fight far far less!

It doesn't work for everyone and you have to be prepared to log your spending but it has genuinely been a life changer for us.

Report
TheOnlyPink · 31/12/2014 14:59

beastling a lot of posters here swear by it. I did the 30 day free trial at the start of 2014, and found it good. Wad just getting my head around it when the trial ended. I just couldn't justify €60 for it tho. It hasn't been on sale since! Just bought it, hoping for some big financial changes in 2015!

OP posts:
Report
Fluffycloudland77 · 31/12/2014 15:04

£7.49 in sterling.

Report
Laska42 · 31/12/2014 15:50

Thats a really good price and its well worth having i think , I had the trial oct/nov and then paid £19 for it on Black Friday, but since gettingthe trail I already have got rid of my OD , paid off CC and saved £200 in my 'buffer' .. (it would have been more but sadly succumbed to the Toast sale this morning.. but hey, at least I didnt buy on credit and thats the whole point..) Smile

Report
LucyTheValiant · 31/12/2014 16:33

I'm quite tempted by this... Is it simple to use? How does it work? DH and I are a bit rubbish with money, not dire but we could definitely be better. Is it worth it? I would really like to save a bit more this year and stop frittering as much.

Report
Laska42 · 31/12/2014 16:45

yes it is and If i were you id definately buy it at this price rather than signing up for the free month (its usually $60 and is not usually discounted - i was lucky on a 'secret' black friday deal which wasnt advertised ontheir website )
They have tutorials on line but it is easy to use once you get used to the 'budget' method .. I was £500 OD and had £3000+ credit card most of last year , (ok i paid off cc due to a bonus ) , but i havent used it since or needed to go OD since i have been tracking on YNAB .. and i was the worst with finances.. now ive become a bank statement geek, but it is great to go into a new year with no debt.. and to have been that way for a couple of months now ..

BTW I read about it on here ..

Report
LucyTheValiant · 31/12/2014 17:00

It sounds really useful... We are paying off a loan that I took out to fund my studies a while ago which is fine, but we do quite easily slip into overdraft spending and then have to be careful the next month to pay it off. I'm sure we waste money on nothing, we earn a perfectly decent (though average) amount that in theory should not leave us overdrawn!

Can I download the desktop version onto my ipad or do I need the laptop?

Report
Living · 31/12/2014 17:10

The big issue at the moment is you do need a lap top. Think they're working on the IPad version.

Report
LucyTheValiant · 31/12/2014 17:15

Can I buy it now, from the ipad, and then download it into my laptop at a later rate? I am visiting family this week and didn't bring the laptop, just the ipad.

Report
Living · 31/12/2014 17:17

I don't see why not. If you search there's a long thread on here on money matters that says how to work it if you've bought through stream. It's the YNAB support thread.

Report
Living · 31/12/2014 17:25

Money Matters. I've just bounced.

Report
LucyTheValiant · 31/12/2014 18:14

Oh fab, thank you!

Report
dementedma · 01/01/2015 12:46

I tried it last year. Really tried it, did the seminars and everything but just got in a hopeless mess every time as the YNAB and the the bank never agreed and I just got really confused. I accept this was probably me as it seems a good programme which works for many people but I gave up in the end. We don't get paid month to month so I just couldn't get it to fit.

Report
iamthemusicman · 01/01/2015 12:58

I'm really interested in trying this but DH gets paid weekly, is there a way to make it work?

Report
SurlyCue · 01/01/2015 13:05

Hi just to add if you are a student YNAB gives you a free account for as long as you are a student. All i did was email to ask if this was true and they sent me an activation code. They said it expires after one year but to renew for free i just need to send them a photo of my student ID card next year.

Report
tribpot · 01/01/2015 13:17

It shouldn't matter how often you get paid, although it is more difficult to get your head round how to budget at the beginning if you're not.

If you watch the tutorial videos on the website, you'll get a good feel for this as it's much more common in the US for people not to be paid monthly. It feels slightly uncomfortable as you either

  • only budget for expenses that will occur before your next pay cheque, i.e. if you pay Council Tax on the last of the month, you don't try and budget it on 1 Jan if you only got a week's wages on 31 Dec.
  • budget for a load of expenses you can't actually pay for using your available cash, and live with a load of red on your budget until you get paid closer to the date of the expenses falling due. e.g. you do budget [x] quid to your Council Tax and have YNAB tell you you've overbudgeted until you actually get paid again prior to the end of the month.


One of its great strengths is not being tied to any particular payment cycle - lots of people want to be able to budget from one pay cheque to the next one, let's say 16th of one month to 15th of another. But this can then leave you all over the place when the cycle changes - i.e. Christmas, change of job, etc.

As Living said, the goal is to get 'buffered', so you have enough money on hand to budget the whole month on day 1 of the month. If you're paid weekly or fortnightly as a lot of US YNABers are, this can be quite a challenge. If (like me) you're paid on almost the last day of the month, it's a piece of piss and the challenge then is to be truly buffered, which is not to budget December's pay cheque until February.

They are indeed working on a fully-featured iPad version - the owner of YNAB blogged recently about trying the beta version out so it's definitely coming.
Report
avocadotoast · 01/01/2015 13:17

I've just got this too (well, got it last week, but ignored it over Christmas). I've sat down today with DH and gone through everything.

We are very slightly overbudgeted for this month but because he gets paid mid-month (and that hasn't been taken into account yet) we should be ok (plus I think I've overestimated some areas). It's giving me a lot of hope!

Report
Living · 01/01/2015 14:00

Avacado - you can use it how you want but the theory is you shouldn't overbudget. If you don't have enough money you need to either (a) reduce some of the 'discretionary' categories (eg you can reduce the food budget but not the rent budget) or (b) don't budget for something and wait for the money to come in.

If you budget money you don't have then you're not getting full advantage from the method - the whole idea about the thinking is recognising that you have a limited amount to spend and if you go wild in Aldi then the money has to come out of another pot.

If you over budget then you aren't facing up to the choices you have to make.

On weekly budgeting there was someone on the other thread who splits the budget into week one, week two etc which allows her to easily know which bills have to be paid when. Being buffered will take forever if you're paid weekly but there are ways around it.

I know 'true' buffered means having a full month in hand. I don't really see the point in that to be honest - I'd prefer to be building savings. Technically it's the same thing but (for me) psychologically easier to steal from the buffer pot than the emergency savings pot!

Report
sillymillyb · 01/01/2015 19:11

Ahh I am gutted I have just seen this, I could have afforded it when it was reduced. Does it happen a lot or is this sale a one off do any of you know? I have just written down a budget for the year ahead and have terrified myself

Report
reallystuckonthisone · 01/01/2015 19:22

Do I really need this? I log all our outgoings on a spreadsheet and then add money for food and a few luxuries. I then log all spends on the spreadsheet in double entry bookkeeping style and reconcile to our bank statement. What more does the YNAB do?

Report
avocadotoast · 01/01/2015 19:22

Living, I understand all that. But considering we're £30 over budgeted and that's only going on what we had from my wage at end of Dec, without taking into account any of DH's income, I don't think that's too bad really.

Plus I'd rather budget for absolutely everything until the end of Jan and have DH's wage fill in a small gap than risk forgetting something. But each to their own I guess.

Report

Don’t want to miss threads like this?

Weekly

Sign up to our weekly round up and get all the best threads sent straight to your inbox!

Log in to update your newsletter preferences.

You've subscribed!

avocadotoast · 01/01/2015 19:32

reallystuck, it sounds like you've got a similar system in place tbh. You could always get the free trial and have a play with it though, see if it's any different to what you're already doing.

Report
tribpot · 01/01/2015 20:28

reallystuck - you can certainly do the YNAB method on a spreadsheet, that's how it started out. The things I find it most useful for:

  • not allocating beyond the money you have on hand (although avocado I would do as you have done and carry that 30 quid debt for now)
  • not forgetting non-monthly expenses, i.e. saving up for Christmas, putting money aside for car repairs, etc. You can borrow from these categories in the lean months but you do so consciously and have to weigh up which use for your money is more important
  • working towards buffering, so you have next month's money on hand sooner.


The emphasis is very much on looking ahead rather than only looking behind to what you've already spent - although deducting money from the budget as soon as a charge goes on your credit card can be eye-opening to see the difference between how much money you think you have and how much you actually have.

I would maybe have a look at a couple of the videos and see if there's anything useful you can apply to your spreadsheet method.
Report
Living · 02/01/2015 03:53

Each to their own tripot. If you're that close and your DH is paid mid month you should be able to get buffered this month and then not an issue moving forwards anyway.

Report
Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.