YNAB

[KathyBeale]

I do! I really, really do. Mostly because my husband and I are terrible with money (I'm not great, but he's dreadful - I gently suggested last month that when we have a big expense such as car insurance we should not spend as much on other things that month and he looked at me as if I had two heads!) and despite us having a good income we're always short at the end of the month.

YNAB seems to have good reviews and I'm going to try the first month free - but I wondered if anyone here has tried it and had success with it?

Or if there are any other apps that people recommend - it has to work on my iphone and my husband's android.

I love YNAB, I too started with the free trial but by the end of it I was hooked and paid for it.

It really gets you to focus on where your money is going and what you are spending it on. You can also budget for big 'one off's' such as car insurance, so that when the time comes to pay it, you have the money available.

YNAB is amazing, definitely recommend it. Helps to compartmentalise your spending so you don't need to worry about your overall bank balance but what you've allocated for each category. You do need to keep it up to date though for it to work, however you can upload statements from your bank. I haven't done this though.

I am shite with money. Dreaded returning to work after mat leave as we had no money to pay £600 to a cm, but we found it using ynab. It helped me find £600 a month. Love it and couldn't be without it

It's great. It's changed my attitude to money and my control of my finances - and that's changed my life. YNAB is fantastic.

Brilliant, thanks. Have downloaded the free trial and put everything into it. Now I just need my husband to embrace the idea.

Give me a shout if you have any questions, it took me a little bit of trial and error to get it working exactly as I needed it.

It does need both of you embracing it. Due to having pots of money in different categories you may start having surplus in your accounts. My DP forgets that it's already been allocated and spends it

Thanks Pushing. Husband so far not keen but though I normally give in to him for an easy life, I am NOT giving in on this.

In fact, if he refuses to do it, I'm going to open a new bank account on Tuesday for our 'everyday expenses' and treat him like a child.

Am getting the daily emails from YNAB too which are so far brilliant.

I think one of YNABs biggest features isn't the software itself, which you could probably do on a spreadsheet with a bit of time and effort, its the way you change your whole mindset.

For years I'd look at the bank balance on payday, do a quick mind subtraction of the big bills and think- excellent!! I've got £xxx to spend!

Then pay day turned into any other normal day of the month, except it was the day I did my budget. And then I buffered myself so I wasn't spending July's pay until August, what an amazing feeling that is!

Basically what I'm saying is read all the demos and I think they still do webinars, watch those too (I think they give away a free membership at the end). It really is about changing the way you think about your lifestyle and your money. When I first started its so tempting to cheat and budget next month too and add incomes you don't have yet, don't do it!

Enjoy

Yes, it's definitely about attitude. I'm feeling more in control already, and less frightened of money.

My husband just keeps saying "we don't need a budget, we just need to stop spending money on shit". Which I'm pretty sure is a budget!

Have just been googling 'how to talk to your spouse about money'. I'm going to bring it up this evening and try to make him understand how important this is to me, and to us as a family.

Yep - echo everyone else's sentiments. My DH doesn't do much with it apart from put in his occasional spends in Asda, but he is mostly housebound and doesn't really make any purchases that I don't know about (e.g. we only have one Amazon account).

I find it invaluable for making sure I don't 'spend money on shit' but do 'have money to pay for the car insurance', which sounds exactly like what your DH wants. Typically in most relationships one person is more of the budget manager than the other, but the other person has to be prepared to engage with it to some degree. Some of the YNAB podcasts talk about how, even when the founders were young parents and students with basically 3 dollars to rub together, they still accepted the need for some 'fun money' that could be spent (I seem to recall it was on a doughnut) without it having to be accounted for down to the last penny. If your DH is happy to have a certain amount of money budgeted for which represents his 'fun money' for the month (and naturally you will be having the same amount for yourself) which is an off-budget account (so once the money is transferred there, it's as if it's all been spent) that can work fine.

Definitely watch the videos, join in a webinar, and have a look at the forum for examples of people who've had to try and get a reluctant spouse on board.

I was the reluctant spouse. I took a lot of convincing, persuading, cajoling and basically threatened to have all cash taken off me before I relented. 14 months later, £14k worth of debt paid off, I'm the biggest convert out there. Your DH is ready for this but doesn't know it yet

Wow Lazycoo! That's incredible. Well done.

Today's YNAB email was about talking to your spouse so I forwarded it to him and said if he doesn't want the app, fine, but to tell me what he's spending and he seems fine with that. I'm hoping if it works for this month when money is very tight then he'll see the benefit of it in the future.

That's good news, KathyBeale. I would try not to be too obsessive about every receipt, particularly not in the first month, but point out if he spends on his debit card (assuming you have a joint account) you can keep track of most things without needing to quiz him about where the dosh has been spent.

Have you set your budget up for this month?

Yes it's all set up. I did it on Friday (payday) so it should be accurate.

Right, although you know to budget to the end of Sept, not til the next pay cheque comes in?

I loved the visibility it gave DH and me and actually enjoyed updating it. Well done setting it up. I needed to be taken by the hand so he might be the same and get on board now he can actually see it. Keep us posted. I'm no expert but here for any questions.

Hold it, I have to budget right to the end of September? Is that the beginning of the using last month's income for this month's expenses? I've not got to that bit on the emails yet!

You need to budget until you will next get money and budget until your available amount is £0 (even if that means creating a category called 'leftover money' and budgeting the surplus to that category).

We get money at random times through the month (weekly, 4 weekly and monthly!) so every time we get money I think 'when does this have to last until?' So I've categorised my YNAB so that regular bills are organised by the week they debit (e.g rent week 1, phone week 3) and that week's debits are the priority for budgeting. Left over money can chip away at a big monthly expense, etc.

It really is so flexible and useful.

lougle's right in that you shouldn't assign money you don't have, but YNAB works on a calendar basis, so your September budget means every day in September. If you get paid monthly but, say, on the 27th, you don't start a new budget period then - you would need to split that income between 'available this month' (to cover off final expenses of September) and 'available next month' so it's available to budget in October, which is when most if it will get spent.

Getting away from payday cycles is an incredibly useful feature of YNAB and worth doing as soon as you can. Properly speaking 'living on last month's income' should probably mean living on August's money in October but that's a pretty tall order. (The rule is really designed because people in the States seem to get paid more frequently than is common in Europe, so often don't have an entire month's money deposited in their current account in one go).

It's incredibly beneficial if you get paid early in December, as it breaks that 'blow it all on Xmas Eve then have nothing but beans for six weeks til the end of January' problem.

I'm probably not doing it properly , but I get around the calendar month budgeting by assigning any spending after that date I get paid to 1st of the next month.

I assign extra money to an on-budget emergency fund or have set up off-budget savings accounts.

Ynab is brilliant - the mindset change is the biggest thing!

It has prioritised our spending and we know exactly how much is saved for things like eating out.

How is your dh getting on now OP?

Just a quick update from me. I LOVE YNAB and it's been brilliant for this month which was a very tight one. Husband is still not completely on board, but I'm hoping he'll download the app this month.

I'm still confused about the months instead of paycheques thing. I've started watching the webinars though, which I'm hoping will help. And I like the idea of assigning spending to the following month.

But so far, so good.

Another big recommendation to get Ynab. Like a pp said, it's the change of mindset that's its biggest pro. Still find to difficult to explain in laymans terms how it works to DH but he's just pleased I'm spending less