Hellobee Boards

@matador84: I love it! It has made a huge difference in our approach to money. We have mad progress with some debt we were dealing with but it has also helped with accountability. I found it really easy to use after watching/doing the free classes (really important). It is an active form of money management as opposed to a lot of other programs which are retrospective. Let me know if you have any specific questions.

@matador84: just saw this thread, and my friend emailed me the other day asking the exact same thing.... so i thought i'd copy and paste what i wrote him:

1. it tracks roll overs, which is huge! for example, if i overspend in a certain category that month, i can choose to have it deduct from next month's budgeted amount. or if i underspend, whatever i didn't use will roll over into next month.

2. it syncs with an iphone/android app (the app is free) - so you can check how much is left in your budgeted category at any time! for example: i want to buy starbucks.. i do a quick check on my phone for how much is left in my "eating out" category. i see that there's only $5 left... do i really want to spend the remaining amount on starbucks or do i want to save it for something else? ynab allows you to think twice before making purchases.

3. it's fluid - it accounts for how life changes month by month. some months you'll need to eat out more because of birthdays, celebrations, etc. other months you can reign it in. say you usually budget $500 for eating out and $500 for groceries. if you think you'll eat out more that month just offset the ratio and consider budgeting $700 for eating out and $300 for groceries. food is still food - if you eat out more, it would make sense that your grocery budget would decrease, no? and if you overspend on BOTH, then take money from a different category that isn't being used as much that month (maybe shopping? entertainment? etc)

4. charts, graphs, reports - if you want a visual, it's all there in the program so you can better understand your spending habits.

5. manual input - i think this is a pro. it doesn't automatically sync your accounts like mint does, and that's a good thing because you're forced to input stuff yourself and it keeps you accountable. if you don't want to login to all your accounts and log every line item, you can download your statements and import it. still somewhat manual and better than auto-syncing.

6. love the ynab philosophy (the 4 rules): http://www.youneedabudget.com/method

7. ability to plan ahead and never worry about unexpected expenses again - this is stuff like annual bills. for example, our car insurance is $1400/year. i have a category for it and divide $1400 by 12... so i put $115/month to "save up" for it. since ynab tracks roll overs, the $115 will roll over month over month. by the time next year hits.. we will already have all $1400 sitting there ready to go.

i never said the bullet points were all going to be concise.
ok these are a lot to help get you started. i see no CON's with ynab... it's the best budgeting tool i have ever used. i read their blog a lot to help keep us focused and inspired. sometimes people submit their real budgets (they keep everyone anonymous), and then they break it apart to see how the budget can be improved. i've gotten lots of great tips from there.

@Mrs. High Heels: we have been using ynab this minth for the first time and loving it. Going to check out those real budgets on the ynab forums!

@Mrs. High Heels: perfect, thanks!

I think I will d/l and go through the free-trial! I've always budgeted using excel, but now that I'm married, own a house, have all these new expenses, I have a hard time figuring out what our budget should be and I really want to be on track esp since we're TTC!

@Mrs. Blue: Just start with basic categories and add things as you need/want. I had convinced myself that I needed the "perfect" set up before getting started but once I actually got things rolling I made some changes.