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|  | |  | | | You Need A Budget (YNAB) - Personal Finance Software | | | | | SKU:
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Out of stock | | | | | | Praised across the internet as hands-down the "best budgeting software", You Need A Budget (YNAB) cuts to the chase with your finances. The software focuses you on the foundation of your finances: the Budget. Experience has shown that when your budget is intact, and functioning correctly, everything else takes care of itself (the bills are paid on time, retirement contributions are made, and unnecessary debt is eliminated). The software is built around Four Rules of Cash Flow. These Four Rules will help you break the paycheck to paycheck cycle, get out of debt, and save more money faster. Where other software packages tend to be the products of years of feature creep, YNAB offers you exactly what you need: a simple, straightforward system to manage your money.
Remember to take advantage of YNAB's fantastic support resources: video tutorials, and free live budgeting classes for any and all interested!
YNAB is built on the powerful Adobe AIR platform, which means you can run it on Windows, Mac, or Linux! | | | | | |
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| | Product Details | | Package Length: | 7.5 inches | | Package Width: | 5.3 inches | | Package Height: | 0.5 inches | | Package Weight: | 0.1 pounds | | Average Customer Rating: |  based on 215 reviews |
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| | System Requirements | | Platform: | Windows / Mac OS X | | Media: | CD-ROM | | Item Quantity: | 1 |
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| | Features | Mac OS X, Windows, (Windows 7 / Vista/ XP / 95, / 98 / 2000 / ME / NT)Mac OS X (10.4.11 / 10.5.4 / 10.5.5 / 10.6)Gain Total Control of Your Money - Stop living paycheck to paycheck, get out of debt, and save money faster with YNABBenefit from four unique, powerful rules for maximizing control over your money - 1)Give Every Dollar a Job - 2)Save for a Rainy Day - 3) Roll with the punches - 4) Stop Living Paycheck to PaycheckGain financial peace by tracking all of your spending (dining out, groceries, bills) with one simple interfaceBe up and running in just minutes, also save time by importing your bank transactions
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| | Customer Reviews | Average Customer Review: ( 215 customer reviews )
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
194 of 199 found the following review helpful:
 Straightforward, solid BUDGETING software Nov 23, 2007
By Ted Wallace
I earn a good living. Yet earlier this year, several months after buying a house and getting settled back into the swing of things I couldn't escape the notion that my family was living beyond its means.
And we were. And YNAB helped me see it.
I'd previously used Quicken and Microsoft Money in an effort to do budgeting to no real effect. The truth is, Quicken and Money are more about having fancy checkbook registers than they are about helping you identify and conform to a budget. This is where they fail.
YNAB is straightforward and it does one thing, and one thing only -- it helps you create and manage a budget. With careful record keeping, you can do the same thing YNAB does with a pen and paper, or with Excel -- but the software is simple and easy-to-use and readily imports transactions (without fail) from my banking institutions.
I used to worry that the number in my checking account may not be enough to make everything come together. I can unequivocally state that now... I just don't care. Because of YNAB, I absolutely know that there's always money enough for anything that's going to come along.
YNAB has helped me exercise some discipline and do so without significant data entry or long, tortured sessions at the computer. If you're looking for something to help you manage your budget this is the software you should get. Ignore the name brands that simply aren't up to the task.
280 of 292 found the following review helpful:
Great software May 16, 2007
By Cady
"Cady"
YNAB Rocks! In a truly frightening kind of "I spend that much money on THAT!" way but in a great way because you can see the impact of your daily coffee habit on your car insurance payment 6 months away.
YNAB allows you account for all your annual bills in 1/12 increments and then when they roll around the money is there to pay for them.
The heart of the YNAB system is a "buffer" which is comprised of last months paychecks in order to allow you to save this months paychecks. You can only live on last months money that you have budgeted into categories beforehand. The premise is that you are never broke and will not have to worry about fluctuations in income if you are living on what you have ALREADY earned.
So the buffer is one full months income. So I'm earning May's income and it is just pouring into my checking and sitting there. Also sitting there is all of April's income. April's income is what I'm paying my current bills with. May is accruing. And I'm budgeting for June's expenses with an eye to leftover April income instead of instantly using Mays.
The way I'm beginning to think of it is: Quicken is a snapshot of yesterday. YNAB is a crystal ball showing me the future.
This is a stand alone piece of software that can download transactions right from your bank so if you use a debit card you don't need to enter receipts for things. I can also say the tech support is the most amazing I have ever dealt with. I sent in a bug report and within 15 minutes had email waiting for me telling me to delete a particular font and then it worked perfectly.
Two thumbs way up but only if you want to see all the leaks in your money handling.
142 of 152 found the following review helpful:
 Great concept, too much manual entry Apr 06, 2010
By NatureLover
I love the concept of YNAB: spending money from the previous month, planning ahead, etc. I had switched from MS Money to Quicken, and then tried YNAB. Yes, the tutorials are great, but they're really time-consuming. However, I spent the time, took the tutorials, and set up my finances in YNAB.
After a couple of months, however, I went back to Quicken. I found that Quicken also has good budgeting features, and while not in the same vein as YNAB, I just find Quicken easier to use. All of my accounts get automatically downloaded to Quicken, a feature not available in YNAB.
All in all, I just found that YNAB requires way too much manual entry. I might try it again at a later date, when I have the patience to do so.
37 of 37 found the following review helpful:
YNAB is not like Quicken... May 15, 2011
By Mark Baker
...and wasn't intended to be. I've been a Quicken user since the DOS days (around 20 years), and have tired of the level of detail I need to track and the time it takes to do it. For those previous reviewers complaining that the positive reviews sound like propaganda (I'm paraphrasing), I assure you I have no connection with the company at all, and had never heard of YNAB until quite recently. This review is of YNAB 3.
Before buying YNAB, you must understand what it is and, perhaps more importantly, what it is not. YNAB is not an accounting system, it's a *household* budgeting system. Its "accounting" features are intentionally sparse - the intent is for users to focus on budgeting rather than accounting. If you're intent on finding a Quicken clone, stop reading and look elsewhere. On the other hand if, like me, you've never had much luck with the budgeting parts of quasi-accounting packages like Quicken and/or if you're tired of spending so much time keeping track of your finances, give YNAB a shot.
YNAB didn't make a lot of sense to me at first, but after attending the free into webinar I was offered via email as soon as I downloaded the trial it all made sense. It boils down to an envelope budgeting system (with a twist), and I find it to be very well done. The point of YNAB is not to track every detail of your household finances, but to help you plan ahead through accurate, effective, and simple budgeting. The holy grail of the YNAB method is what the company refers to as the "YNAB buffer", which simply means spending last month's income this month (in perpetuity). Doing this makes planning and budgeting much simpler, not to mention drastically reducing the financial stresses of life, and the program itself can actually help you get there.
When I first looked at YNAB I thought, "how am I going to track my investments, and my paycheck deductions, and etc., etc." But why have I been doing all that anyway? What good has it done to track it in Quicken when all that information is readily available on Web sites maintained by my employer, my bank, and my investment firm? Giving up all that useless detail really can help you focus on budgeting, and in my opinion that's the most important thing - plus I don't need to spend nearly as much time as I used to spend with Quicken. I have had no problems with accuracy in any way; YNAB 3 includes an automatic error checking feature that does a good job of preventing the kinds of issues a few other reviewers have reported. I love it, and I won't be going back to Quicken.
Having said all that, sure, there are a couple of things I miss from Quicken. Automatic transaction download into the program would be nice (the developers are reportedly working on that), and I'd like to see a demarcation line in the register between past and future transactions along with current and future balances. In all honesty, though, that's about it.
The only technical issue I've run into so far was when downloading and importing transactions using QFX files (which is actually pretty painless, BTW). I've had two incidents in which an imported transaction was incorrectly matched to an identical but already cleared transaction from a week earlier. In both cases, the matched transactions were actually transactions that I downloaded and imported to populate my account when I first installed the program, and had never been "matched" before. This didn't cause me any serious problems; I merely unmatched the transaction, deleted the resulting "new" transaction, and manually marked the correct transaction as cleared (about 10 seconds). I submitted a bug report on that yesterday and received an email back from the company within 24 hours looking for more information - on a Sunday! YNAB the company is one of the most user-focused software companies I've ever run across. They've provided great support so far, and the forum is another excellent source.
Bottom line: If you're most concerned with keeping track of your financial history, as Quicken is, then you'd be better served by Quicken or a similar product. YNAB is not that product. If you want to budget effectively while investing minimal time in record-keeping, on the other hand, you owe it to yourself to give YNAB a chance. Should you decide to try it, you should DEFINITELY attend the Intro to YNAB webinar, which is offered on a regular basis.
52 of 55 found the following review helpful:
Simple and Effective May 09, 2008
By L. Soete
I bought YNAB Pro about 2 weeks ago after being a long-time Quicken user so this review is not based on extensive use of the software at this time. However, I'm not new to financial/budgeting software. I've tried out several. I liked all the bells and whistles of Quicken, but it wasn't working for me as a budgeting tool as it only shows you where you're money went. Quite frankly their budget set-up interface left a lot to be desired, only allowing you to create a general monthly budget.
With YNAB, I was up and running within a few minutes, and after playing with all the features to see what it could do, I was fully loaded with a budget and bank transactions within twenty minutes. It is the most user friendly software I've ever encountered. The YNAB website has comprehensive advice and How-To's in the forums, VIDEO How-To tutorials AND a users manual in PDF format. If that's not enough "Help" you can post a question to forums OR contact the seller via the website.
I have encountered no issues with downloading bank transactions or issues of any other kind. However, if for some reason you're not happy with YNAB there is a 60 day money-back guarantee. ALSO, you will get any future software updates for free. No yearly upgrade fees and YNAB never becomes an obsolete software as so many do. It is a one-time purchase that will last you the rest of your life.
Do not mistake YNAB as a financial tracking system; if that's what you're looking for don't buy it.
YNAB is a hard-core, balls to the wall BUDGETING tool for planning your monthly expenses with the sole purpose of getting a grip on your out of control spending so you can begin saving money and basically build up that nice nest egg; creating financial stability and freedom in your life. This is not for the wishy-washy, faint of heart person who thinks a software application is going to miraculously "fix it". It's for the person who seriously wants to make changes in their spending habits and is willing to work at it. YNAB is the best friend you'll ever have if this is your goal.
The very best feature of this software, in my opinion, is it's ability to be 100% personally customized to your unique budgeting needs. You can add, delete, and rename categories and sub categories as you wish. You do not have to wade through a bunch of pre-determined expense categories to get to the ones that matter to you. Other great features is the bank transaction downloading, transaction scheduler, and the ability to transfer funds from one account to another within the budget. The methodology behind the software is not difficult to understand, but sheer common sense.
Oh, I've never met the software creator or anyone else involved in the YNAB creation. I am a mere consumer who purchased the software and am currently using it.
See all 215 customer reviews on Amazon.com
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