YNAB

Just received an email that the cost of YNAB is increasing (again) to $109/yr effective August 1 for new sign-ups and September 1st for renewals.

Definitely has me checking alternative options again as I don't feel like there have been enough improvements since the last price increase to justify another one already.

I wanted to start using a budgeting program to better organize my spending/ goals, and basically narrowed it down to 3 --YNAB, Actual and Quicken Simplifi.

I setup a self-hosted instance of Actual and was able to import my spending from my account by exporting from my bank and importing into the app, however this seemed like it might get tedious over time, so I decided to try YNAB.

So far this has been pretty straight forward. I'm still waiting for things to sync up with my linked accounts, but I like it so far. I would try Simplifi but there's no trial period there; though the graphs and UI make it seem appealing.

Anyone here have any experience with Simplifi/ YNAB, and why might you chose one over the other?

Would love to switch to a credit union, but I travel a lot and most are regional. DCU seems decent but does it work with ynab? I don't want to manually enter everything.

I can't help but feel like I'm doing the exact same busy work in YNAB all the time. Matching up my scheduled transactions to imported ones, like for water/electric/paycheck (things that vary). I wish YNAB would just see it's the same Payee (those match) and within a few days and auto-match them. I'll even set min/max ranges or something. It's just such busy work and it could be automated.

cc: @ynab #ynab

I mean, I guess they're being cheeky, but way to hit someone while they're down.

My bike picked up a nail in a tyre yesterday. This is why I have "funny noises and punctures" as a budget category.

The post title is my question - Are there any FOSS YNAB Alternatives?

Basically the title: are you going to do a Fresh Start for the new year? Why or why not?

I'm trying to figure out if I want to or not, so figured I'd find out other people's reasonings before I decided.

I'm curious how this community budgets for Christmas gifts? If you lump sum it, how do you make sure you spend the right amount on everyone?

Timely topic with the holidays coming up!

I've watched the Nick True video that came highly recommended in a bunch of Reddit results (e.g. here), but I still don't understand what's going on.

1. Have all funds assigned, so that "Ready To Assign" is at zero.
2. Approve a(n automatically imported) transfer from my checking account to my credit card account (see screenshot). Note that it is registered as an inter-account Payment and not as a regular expense.
3. Budget view shows an equivalent amount of money "Ready To Assign".

End of an era. I'm sure many people here started their personal finance tracking with Mint. I certainly did, and I was using it all the way up until switching to YNAB early this year.

The CEO of a competitor, Monarch Money, posted a great article about the shutdown (different from the OP link). The article ends in a plug for Monarch, but he makes a great point about subscription-based services. I'll copy-paste a snippet here.

[...] After 25 years in the technology industry, I’ve seen firsthand how a company eventually becomes its business model. Google is no longer a search company, but an advertising company. Facebook is no longer a social network, but an advertising company. Similarly, Mint and Credit Karma are no longer personal finance companies, but advertising companies.

If you’re an existing Mint user and wondering how you should best manage your finances going forward, I would strongly encourage you to consider a subscription-based personal finance app instead of a free one.

A subscription-based app:

• Aligns company interests with your interests. It’s hard to overstate the importance of this. When you are paying for the service, you are the customer. You call the shots, and the company builds what you want and need. If it doesn’t, you cancel your subscription. This aligns incentives and ultimately leads to a much better user experience. The opposite is true in a free service, where ultimately the advertiser is the customer as they are the ones paying the bills. [...]

(As well as a few other bullets that follow). Worth the read too.

YNAB now comes in blurple, presents a more cohesive look across platforms and has a bunch of accessibility improvements. They made a video on the changes as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxGgcpx76I4

What does /c/ynab think?

I personally got used to it pretty quickly - after all it's mostly only visual changes. Although on mobile, I find the blurple looks a bit harsher than the old YNAB colours.

Hi everyone! I am planning a short vacation in the upcoming months and for that, I wanted to add a category group and a few categories (travel, food, accommodation, etc). But then I started thinking about what to do with these categories once the trip is over and I don't need them anymore.

Since I haven't done this myself yet, I was wondering how people deal with these types of temporary categories? Rename? Or put it all in a more generic "travel" or "next big expense" category?

I'd rather not simply hide them forever, as this could feel a bit messy over time :)

This shortcut lets you:

• Add transactions (works with Siri)
• Import bank files (csv/qif)
• Automatically create a transaction if you pay with your phone on iOS 17‘s (transaction automation)
• Add transactions automatically to Splitwise

Download Shortcut

Each of these is optional ofc.

Setup

• Download Pythonista and open it once (sadly not free)
• Generate an access token for your account here: YNAB dev settings, copy it and paste it during the setup
• Run the shortcut and follow the instructions

I’m happy to help if you run into any issues :)

The YNAB App on iOS has a new shortcut that lets you enter a transaction with custom values.

Hi all, Another newbie question here. I manage our family's cellphone plan, which is $199.90/month for 5 lines (two in our household, 3 from other family members). The other family members reimburse me using Venmo each month.

So, I set up a category with the target amount of $199.90, due on the date that our cell phone bill is due, as per YNAB's recommendations. At the beginning of the month, I assigned $199.90 to that category. Then, when our family members' venmo payments came in, I categorized those as inflows to the cell phone account. Now, waiting for the bill, I see:

• $199.90 in "assigned"
• +$120 in "activity"
• $319.90 in "available"

All of this makes sense to me. But, it seems like now I should be able to re-assign $120 to another category. If I try that, though, it suddenly shows the category as underfunded, despite the fact that I still have $199.90 available.

Am I misunderstanding how assigned / activity / available work? Why, after $120 of inflow, is YNAB still requiring me to keep $199.90 assigned?

Hi all - new to YNAB - our family just got things set up. I think that we have a good grasp of the basic mechanics (we both work in jobs that interact with budgets, and just haven't applied this to our own finances rigorously before!)

But I'm wondering how you integrate YNAB into your life - what does your workflow look like? In other words: what do you do each day? With each paycheck? At the beginning of the month? How often do you sit down and review the big picture and set new goals, etc?

It would be great to hear about your rhythm and cadence for making this part of your routine, for those of us who are figuring it out for the first time!

This has been a little side project for me and I thought some of you fellow YNABers might appreciate it: SplitBill for iOS.

It’s a really simple app that lets you snap a picture of a receipt and then split the transactions into different cards. Could be categories (if you want to split the transaction into different categories in YNAB) or people.

I hope someone here finds it useful :)

I'm hoping some budgeting expert out there can tell me the best way to record some relatively unusual events in YNAB. I don't know how to simplify this without risking misunderstanding, so here's the situation. Let me break it down:

BEFORE THE LEASE:

I had made purchases on behalf of a friend over several years, and just gave her her own budget category to look back at what she owed me and what she repaid. I could use Reports to add the transactions up and see a total.

Then, I took on responsibility for a substantial car loan on her behalf by signing for it, under the agreement that she'd be making the payments. I say substantial because it also contained the negative value of a car she still owed money on. It was underwater from the start by design. I used the nifty Loans feature to keep track of what I owed the lienholder, although I had no expectation of having to make any payments myself; this loan was for my friend to repay.

When it became clear to me that my friend wasn't going to be making any payments on this loan, I felt pressure to get out from under it. I traded in assets, both the car the loan was for, and my own car, which I owned outright (and loved), to approach a zero-value starting point to lease a car for myself. It was the only solution I could come up with.

AFTER THE LEASE:

The operation was a success, and I am now making payments on a leased car for myself. Now my carless friend owes me—not the bank—the difference between the value of the loan and the value of the car it was for. That's on top of her existing debt, which is preserved in the budget category I made for her.

I don't know how to document this situation in YNAB, though. What do I do with the loan section? Is a lease a loan for budgeting purposes? Do I create an asset tracking account or keep using my friend's budget category to keep track of this now-massive debt? Any thoughtful suggestions on handling this would be super helpful.

I just noticed the other day that focused views is supported now on mobile too. Is anybody using it or have any views they really like?