Budgeting app - like YNAB but cheaper?

[RagzReturnsRebooted]

I've used YNAB for years, but the price is going up and I need to cut costs. I also resent paying for functionality I can't use, as I do it all manually because my bank accounts don't link (it's US based and set up for their banking). It's a lot of money for what I use it for, which is basically the envelope method and budget to zero. I need an app as we have money coming in weekly as well as monthly and it varies, so I'm not working on a set amount each payday.

I'm currently trialling Money Dashboard (free) and Money hub (about £10 a year), but I'm finding the change from 'budget to zero' to just tracking and predicting difficult, especially when these apps seem to only give monthly budgets and I have plenty of expenses (like gifts, car maintenance etc) that need spreading and tracking over the year. Also, MD is not user friendly and keeps duplicating transactions.

Has anyone got a recommendation for another one to try, or found they got on with either of these? Also willing to consider changing banks if any offer similar capabilities in their own apps. I know Starling do, but I don't think it's enough for what I want.

I'm keeping an eye on this thread OP. We're in the exact same position. We love YNAB but don't like the price increase for something that's supposed to help you save money. We've decided to stick with it because it works out at about £15 per year increase and for £15 a year I don't think it's worth loosing it but if something is comparable I'd definitely consider it.

I'm also watching with interest. I'm using Money Dashboard but am finding it frustrating for the same reasons as you OP. It also doesn't seem to always recognise a regular expense, eg a bill, in the Spending Plan even though it has categorised it correctly. I may be doing something wrong but it's not user friendly if I can't work out how to correct it.

I’m feeling the same way about YNAB deposits having been very happy with it for years and years. No idea what alternatives there are though, unhelpfully.

I used YNAB only briefly so am not fully aware of the functionality, but I do a zero based budget using the saving spaces in my Starling account. You can set up saving spaces for each bill or category of bills and can have standing orders and direct debits paid directly from the savings pot. Plus I have a shopping pot with a separate debit card to keep food shopping budget separate. I don't pay any fee for the account and it's easy to set up an account so could be worth getting the app and having a play around to see if you can make it work for what you need it to do.

I use a good old fashioned notebook. We get money weekly, 4 weekly and monthly. I write income on one side and outgoings on the other, ticking everything off as it goes out.

Money available to spend is moved to a different account.

There were several discussions about alternatives on the YNAB sub-reddit that have all been linked to in this thread: www.reddit.com/r/ynab/comments/qqwwl7/megathread_november_2021_ynab_updates/

They are launching UK and EU bank sync soon.

Personally I find YNAB worth it and no other alternative does everything I want/need it to but this is a good comparison if you're looking to switch :)

www.reddit.com/r/ynab/comments/qkvc7s/alternates_to_ynabheres_a_list/

I think if I couldn't use YNAB, I'd do the following:

1x bank account for bills. Set up everything on direct debit. Transfer set amount into this account monthly, the amount to cover everything plus about £20 "wiggle room" in case a bill goes up and I don't notice. Do nothing with this account except check that it doesn't go overdrawn. If the balance starts creeping up, do a check and transfer out the excess.

1x bank account for spending. Choose one that allows you to set up "savings jars". I believe these are limited in number, usually around 5, so set them up for the following:

Emergency Fund
Household replacement fund (e.g. appliances, phones, etc)
Christmas/birthdays fund
Holiday fund
Other/misc (whatever I'm saving for - wish farm or whatever)

If there's no way to set goals in those accounts then I'd use the naming feature to put my goal and the due date and the monthly contribution, which I'd have to figure out by myself I suppose!

Then anything left over is for everyday spending like food shopping, nappies, kids' clothes, fun stuff, socialising etc.

Oh and maybe a third account for general saving, with the best interest rate I could find, with a direct debit going into that monthly as well.

I tried just about every app imaginable before finding ynab- it was the only thing that worked for me and really helped me turn my finances around. I guess though that the principle behind it is pretty basic though and you could do it just with a spreadsheet? I use starling and you can categorise spending in there (which would make it easier to reconcile a manual system as you could enter the total of the categories rather than each transaction?) and also set up “spaces” for certain pots of money (you can also now have bills paid from a space). I don’t use much of this functionality because I don’t need to because of ynab but I think they would be helpful otherwise.

@Mrsacemay

I used YNAB only briefly so am not fully aware of the functionality, but I do a zero based budget using the saving spaces in my Starling account. You can set up saving spaces for each bill or category of bills and can have standing orders and direct debits paid directly from the savings pot. Plus I have a shopping pot with a separate debit card to keep food shopping budget separate. I don't pay any fee for the account and it's easy to set up an account so could be worth getting the app and having a play around to see if you can make it work for what you need it to do.

Interesting. DH has a Starling account so I may have a play with the app and see what it looks like.

[quote marchtothebee]There were several discussions about alternatives on the YNAB sub-reddit that have all been linked to in this thread: www.reddit.com/r/ynab/comments/qqwwl7/megathread_november_2021_ynab_updates/[/quote]
I did spend a while reading on Reddit, but it's very US based and I wanted UK alternatives.

I'm still using Money dashboard and Money hub but pretty sure I won't be sticking with either.

I used money dashboard. However I do convert everything to monthly. So every month I put an amount in a savings account for insurances, christmas etc. but also I put an amount away for clothes, diy spending, vets bills etc. this then goes as a monthly charge onto my money dashboard. If I buy clothes I take the money from my savings pit to net against my current account / credit card so the net effect on my budget is zero. I also effectively do prepayments the same way if I haven't paid for something in advance. I pay it then from savings tfr the amount that's not for current month and then each month put a proportion back in from my current account. Again spreading it monthly for my budget.

I don't think there really are many UK specific alternatives except for bank accounts that use savings jars.

You could look here too:
forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6203215/ynab-alternative-forecasting

Starling Bank
Set up spaces.
Has its own payment dashboard.

Before I moved from YNAB 4 to the web-based YNAB I looked at Money Wiz - I still might consider it as it has a desktop client and its pricing looks competitive.

I see from a recent blog post that someone has gone with Quicken Premier and used their support line to find out how to set up zero-based budgeting as well.

I would probably consider something like Excel as well - this blog post has some useful links to templates. It depends whether you need to enter transactions on the go.

I see that YNAB haven't learnt any lessons about comms, their official statement "this better reflects the value of the software" is meaningless. I did note bank imports were finally on the way for the UK/EU.

I have found a YNAB replacement! ActualBudget. $4 a month (so less than half the price). Doesn't do sync with banks (yet), but actually having trialled a few that do, I think I prefer the manual, budget to zero approach. I'll try this for a month, but so far so good. I have set it all up on the website with my budget categories and now having a look at the app.

It is very similar to YNAB with a few small differences that may actually be better. You can view months side by side, on the Web page version, so you can see last month and next month at the same time if you like.

I'll keep you all posted!

That's interesting, you used to be able to do that with YNAB I think? (YNAB 3 or4). The lack of bank feed isn't a big issue since we don't have it in YNAB yet anyway!

Yes, apparently this is more like old YNAB. I'm liking it! Can also import transactions from bank statements if you really want. But I'm better with money when I'm checking daily, so will probably stick with manual. At least I'm not paying the ynab prices any more! It was cheap when I first got it but not worth it now.

Sounds good - I've put a watch on this thread so will check for updates when you've used it for a month?

OP how are you getting on with the YNAB alternative? I'm in the exact same position as you- only use it for the basic functions and am annoyed at the price increase!

My gripe with YNAB is that they used to strongly advocate against paying for anything that you had to pay a monthly subscription for. Then...

Absolutely @horizontilting I think they will loose a lot of customers over this but I just cannot justify the price increase when I use only the basic functions. I've just been reading Reddit. Did you see their very ill timed newsletter? On the same day as the price increase was announced a section in the NL asked employees what they would spend an £100 on for fun! 🙄

What about going back to YNAB4 if you have it? I was grandfathered into the old price so I think mine will double. Will still pay as worth it for us but I'm not interested in syncing as it's the manual process (and associated reflection) that gives me real value add. I wish I could get a basic version for cheaper as I also don't really get anything from the new mortgage feature

Just reviving this thread to see how @RagzReturnsRebooted is getting on and to say I've remembered something else that really annoys me about YNAB. I'm doing DH's tax return and need to extract various transactions to include them in the calculations - the only thing I can do is export everything (and my YNAB goes back to 2014) and then query it in Excel. I see that ActualBudget is still a bit limited on reporting but with plans to expand. YNAB4 used to allow you to filter your data and then 'export current view only', which was fine for what I need.