humblr grumblr

YNAB - Best budgeting software ever

I’m looking after my budget by myself from now on, with help from my brother. By help I mean he’s taking possession of my cards so I don’t fall off the wagon like I have in the past. This might seem drastic, but I’m all for it…anyhow…

I’ve never had much luck with budgeting programs; they were all too complicated for me, and I could never get them to reconcile them with my bank balance. The two biggies are Microsoft Money (no longer in development) and Quicken. Both are hopeless for a simpleton like me.

But I’ve stumbled onto a winner now! It’s called YouNeedABudget. It’s built using Adobe Air so it works on any operating system, and it also comes with an iPhone app.

YNAB follows a different philosophy with budgeting, which I like:-

• Give every dollar a job
• Save for a rainy day
• Roll with the punches
• Stop living from paycheque to paycheque

Sounds simple, huh…well it defintely is. Basically you save up a buffer of at least one month’s salary. The aim here is that you’re always budgeting a month ahead. And you should always budget every last dollar.

In my situation, I like to have all my direct debits come off a credit card that I’m still paying off. So I transfer all of my salary to that card, including an amount over and above the minimum card payment. This is helping me cut down interest on the card and pay down more capital. It’s really easy to account for it in YNAB - it’s as simple as saying transfer $X to the credit card, then when I spend on the credit card allocate each amount to a certain budgeting category.

With the iPhone app you can add expenses while you’re out at the shops so you don’t forget what you’ve bought and it’ll sync up with your computer when you get home. This is brilliant for checking how much you’ve got in a certain category and making sure you never go over.

I think I’m onto a real winner here. I’ve put a couple of screenshots below so you can see how nice its interface is to use. But go check it out. You can get a trial version to see if you like it.

Oh, and the best thing…they have a community forum that is well visited. Everybody is friendly and willing to help me out with any problems I have, and the maker of the software is very active and always giving advice and including requests from users into the software.