There's no wrong or right way to budget, but finding a method that fits your unique money situation can make all the difference in helping you reach your financial goals. YNAB, short for “You Need a Budget,” is a fantastic tool that can help you reach your cash flow goals more efficiently, faster, and—may I say—with less agony and frustration. In this YNAB review, we're excited to share how it can help you finally get a firm grasp on your cash flow.
What is YNAB?
While there are many available budgeting programs, none are quite like YNAB. Not only does it aim to help you track the inflows and outflows that make up your budget, but it also provides you with an entire framework for how to view spending and saving. After all, success with money is said to be 80% behavior-related and only 20% attributable to knowledge.
YNAB originally started as a spreadsheet, which won't surprise you when you look at even the most current iteration of the software. Its clean interface identifies your budgeted, spent, and remaining amounts (or, in YNAB lingo: assigned, activity, and available balances).
The transaction side of YNAB is reminiscent of an old-style check register (I'm dating myself here for sure!), showing a listing of transactions by account, date, payee, amount, category, and other additional notes.
And with such a straightforward name like “You Need a Budget,” you won't be surprised that the company was started by an accountant (see Andy's interview with Jesse Mecham here!).
In addition to its core budgeting software, YNAB is heavily focused on providing financial education to its users.
YNAB is currently available for the Web, iPhone, Android, iPad, Apple Watch and Alexa.
How Do You Use YNAB?
A discussion of YNAB wouldn't be complete without a brief discussion of its philosophy. YNAB has one overarching motto that summarizes their entire methodology: “give every dollar a job.” This emphasizes the need to be more proactive in assigning money before it's spent.
Unlike traditional budgeting apps, YNAB only allows you to assign money to budget categories when those funds are actually received in your account (this is referred to as giving your dollars a “job”). Note that you're not strictly assigning your income, but every single dollar you have in your bank accounts right now. This process is similar to zero-based budgeting but goes a step further by including all your available funds, not just your income.
YNAB's 5 Questions
YNAB also offers five questions to think about when budgeting with their method. Each of these is aimed at a different aspect of planning ahead to put your money toward the things that matter, both now and in the future.
- The Reality Question: What does this money need to do before I'm paid again?
- The Stability Question: What larger or less frequent spending do I need to prepare for?
- The Resilience Question: What can I set aside for next month's spending?
- The Creation Question: What goals, large or small, do I want to prioritize?
- The Flexibility Question: What changes do I need to make, if any?
With the YNAB method, you'll never be “surprised” by annual car registration fees, subscriptions, repairs, or even Christmas (um, yes, this does indeed happen every year, so it definitely shouldn't be a surprise expense).
The biggest reason (by far!) that people give up on their budget is because they struggle with overspending. No one wants to feel like a failure, and that's where the flexibility of YNAB comes in.
Not only will you gain clarity about how much you spend, but you can also simply change your budget throughout the month. Spent too much on eating out this month? Throw some money at the problem and move money around from another category to cover it. You'll likely think twice the next time you’re tempted to take funds from your “Travel to Europe” category.
Setting targets and saving monthly for these expenses means the money is there—both in your account and your categories—when you need it.
While requiring more hands-on engagement than other budgeting software programs, proactively giving your dollars jobs and thinking through each of the five questions helps maximize your intentionality around your finances and minimize financial stress.
YNAB Review: Best Features
Over the years, YNAB has gradually expanded from a zero-based budgeting spreadsheet to a full-featured budgeting software program that manages all cash-flow aspects of your financial life, from budgeting to debt repayment.
Here are some of the top things people love about using YNAB:
Efficient (But Still Intentional) Money Management
YNAB helps you to optimize the time you spend regularly managing your budget. It strikes a balance between allowing you to automate the import and categorization of your income and expenses (a tedious, generally non-value-added task) and requiring you to actively approve each transaction and move money from other categories when you've overspent. This ensures that you are being intentional and aware of your spending.
In addition, the focus on saving in advance for future “true” expenses by setting monthly target amounts helps minimize financial stress. This ensures that you're never surprised by an annual bill, since you've been tracking and saving it since the last time you paid it!
The mobile app makes it easy to track and monitor spending on the go so that you always have up-to-date information about how much money you have left in each category. YNAB also has mobile widgets that you can customize to help you keep track of your categories at a glance.
Ability to Customize
One of the most loved features of YNAB is the ability to customize nearly every aspect of your budget, including:
- Account names and order in which the accounts are shown
- Category groups and subcategories and their listed order
- Scheduled transactions (which link seamlessly to any transactions subsequently imported in)
- Off-budget accounts (known in YNAB as tracking accounts) that factor into your net worth but are not included in your budget (such as brokerage and retirement accounts, mortgages, etc.).
- Debt payment strategies, including analyzing the impact of making additional principal payments toward your debt
Customizations in your YNAB account allow for more clarity in your financial situation and better insight into how you can reach your important goals.
Collaboration
The “YNAB Together” feature allows you to share budgets with your partner, financial coach, or your kids. You can manage which specific budgets you would like to share and with whom while keeping other information private.
Being able to add an unlimited number of budgets in YNAB is a unique feature that makes YNAB Together even more valuable, since many other budgeting apps only allow you to track a single budget under their subscription model.
Up to 5 collaborators are allowed without an additional subscription fee.
Education & Support
From the minute you sign up for a YNAB account, you are given step-by-step prompts to help you set up your accounts, categories, and targets (targets are essentially your financial goals).
Need more help? You have options:
- Attend one of the many live onboarding sessions
- Watch tutorial videos (check out Hannah's YouTube videos–she's so fun!)
- Read the YNAB book to learn more about the system behind the software
- Join the active YNAB Facebook group
- Check out the YNAB-certified coach directory
No Pesky Advertisements, Upsells, or Advisor Calls
YNAB receives revenue solely from paid subscriptions and has no advertisements, premium subscription tiers, or other products. While they have a directory of YNAB coaches, they do not receive any related compensation. Also, you'll never receive unsolicited calls about services.
You will, however, receive loads of emails to help you get started, but those are easy enough to opt out of if you don't wish to receive them.
YNAB Review: Areas for Improvement
Somewhat Steep Learning Curve
Due to the different mindsets required when using YNAB versus other more simplified budget programs, there is a significantly steeper learning curve to learning the software.
Understanding how credit cards are treated in YNAB often presents challenges for new users, as money spent using credit cards essentially offsets other available bank balances.
Taking advantage of live webinars and researching YNAB's help directory can help you quickly find answers to your questions. Once you’ve used it for a few months, you will fully understand the process and how everything ties together.
Cost
Unlike other budgeting tools such as Empower or EveryDollar's free plan, YNAB is not free to use. A subscription to YNAB will cost you $14.99/month if paid monthly or $109/year if you pay upfront.
The increased awareness, however, results in the average new user saving $600 in the first two months and $6,000 in the first year, according to YNAB. Overspenders could easily earn back the $109 subscription fee in credit card interest savings alone!
There is a “no credit card required” free 34-day trial to see if YNAB will work for you.
Not A Full-Service Money Application
YNAB is not a one-stop shop when it comes to complete money management. It does not include detailed investment tracking, credit monitoring, bill-tracking, or bill-paying features. If these things are important to you, it will be necessary to use other tools in addition to YNAB.
Limited Reports
A big complaint from YNAB users is that reports are somewhat limited, although they have recently been expanded to provide more spending insight. Currently, they offer the following reports:
- Spending Breakdown
- Spending Trends
- Net Worth
- Income v Expense
- Age of Money
These reports are customizable by date, accounts, and categories so that you can dial in to exactly the information you're looking for.
Those who want more granular data can export accounts, budgets, and transactions to a CSV file, where they can further analyze their data.
YNAB Competitors
Focusing on being intentional with your money before it's spent rather than simply tracking what you’ve already spent is the main differentiating factor from other budgeting software programs.
EveryDollar
EveryDollar is a top YNAB competitor. So how does EveryDollar bring the heat? Through Dave Ramsey, of course!
Many people discover the world of personal finance as a result of Dave Ramsey. Whether they have already completed his Baby Steps program or are still working through it, many people connect with his budgeting platform called EveryDollar.
EveryDollar is a budgeting tool and spending tracker. You can build your money goals into the app. Then, EveryDollar will help you strategize ways to pay down your debt. The app also integrates the Baby Steps, so people who currently use that program will find this tool to be a logical pairing.
However, it is worth noting that EveryDollar doesn't track your investments. If that matters to you, you will definitely want to consider other budgeting tools.
Want to dive deeper? Here's a detailed view of EveryDollar vs. YNAB!
Monarch Money
Monarch Money is another paid money management program at the same price point as YNAB. It offers many of the same features:
- Automatic bank importing
- Ability to share your finances with a partner
- A focus on reaching financial goals
In addition, Monarch Money also allows you to forecast cash flow and track your investments, and has recently added an AI Assistant to help you get even more insights into your spending and net worth. Monarch Money has also recently added a Plus tier that offers more advanced investment tracking, the ability to track business cash flow, and retirement planning features.
If you're looking for something more focused on intentional budgeting and don't need the additional information Monarch Money provides, YNAB will be a better fit.
For more details, check out our in-depth YNAB vs. Monarch showdown!
Simplifi by Quicken
Another great (and less expensive) alternative to YNAB is Simplifi. Developed by Quicken, it's a modern app geared toward a younger generation of users.
So, why might Simplifi be better for some users? In addition to a lower subscription cost, Simplifi also offers a different set of features. It's more intuitive to set up and start using, includes more in-depth and customizable reports, and allows you to pull in investment accounts for a more complete picture of your finances.
If you're looking for proactive budgeting that will help you change your mindset around spending, YNAB can't be beat. But if you prefer more hands-off budgeting or prefer an app that provides a comprehensive view of your entire financial life, Simplifi is a fantastic solution.
Want to see a more in-depth comparison to YNAB? Check out our YNAB vs. Simplifi review!
YNAB FAQ
How much does YNAB cost?
YNAB is subscription-based software coming in at $14.99/month or $109/year for upfront annual payments. You can sign up for a 34-day free trial with YNAB without entering any payment information.
College students are eligible for a free one-year subscription by emailing YNAB support with proof of enrollment.
Who does YNAB work best for?
YNAB is best for those who want to optimize their finances, create a zero-based budget, or are struggling to break the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle. It requires someone willing to learn a new method of managing their money.
Is YNAB safe?
Yes! YNAB is safe. YNAB takes your security seriously. So seriously, in fact, that their Security page is one of the most comprehensive plans we've come across in the fintech world.
They use bank-grade or better encryption. That means that your browser has to be encrypted when sharing your data. Additionally, as you use YNAB, they have a new browser security features that makes some kinds of data attacks against YNAB impossible.
If you do have concerns, you can reach out to their Security team at security@ynab.com.
Does YNAB work for couples?
Sure does! YNAB absolutely works for couples. Why? Because YNAB believes that couples should manage their money as a team. In addition to offering a ton of resources on how to address your finances together, YNAB has features built into the platform to help you do so. They even allow you to track which person has moved money around in the budget.
One of the most important things you should know is that you can share your YNAB subscription with a partner for no extra cost! Though your subscription is shared, you each have your own log-in account. Plus, you can customize how to share spending plans and other information. Because YNAB knows that you want a team plan for your money, but not every account or spending plan might be joint.
Is YNAB good for a business budget?
You can use YNAB to build a budget for your small business! YNAB is best for businesses that don't have a ton of inventory or need to manage payroll for their employees. If you run a simple business, YNAB can absolutely work for you. The best part is that if you use YNAB to manage your personal finances, you will already have a basic understanding of how the platform is set up when you build a business budget.
Does YNAB actually move money?
YNAB does not move money between accounts or allow bill payments within the app. It does have a “move money” feature that assists you in transferring money from one budget category to another to efficiently cover overspending.
How do I contact YNAB support?
You can reach YNAB’s support team in the following ways:
- Email: help@ynab.com
- Online: Contact Form
- In-app messaging (after logging in)
You can also join a free workshop if you have difficulty managing specific areas (such as credit cards, budgeting for variable income, and more).
What is the YNAB cancellation policy?
YNAB doesn’t require credit card information for its free trial, so there’s no risk of accidentally being charged for a subscription you don’t want.
However, if you decide that YNAB doesn’t work for you after subscribing, you can cancel online or email them at help@ynab.com. Their generous policy even allows you to get a prorated refund on your annual subscription.
Note that if you purchase your subscription through a third party, such as the Apple App Store or Google Play Store, you’ll instead be subject to their refund terms.
You can see more details about their cancellation policy here.
Final Thoughts on our YNAB Review
If you feel like you're not spending intentionally as you'd like, YNAB may be the tool you need. This can help you both save more and spend more, albeit on the things that matter the most to you.
Check it out with their free 34-day trial and see whether you become yet another YNAB super-fan who can't imagine their money life without it.
What do you think of this YNAB review? What has your experience been with YNAB?
Please let us know in the comments below.
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