10 Reasons YNAB is the BEST Budget App - YouTube

I've been budgeting for 13 years. For the last  six years, I've used You Need a Budget or YNAB for  

short. Despite the fact that YNAB is not a cheap  software, I really wish we had started using it  

much sooner. Since my husband and I started using  YNAB together, we've gained confidence in managing  

our money, clarity in making decisions and better  communication about where we're headed together.  

And that's all besides the benefit of consistently  growing our net worth year after year. And we did  

all that while going through two job losses and  you know... a crazy number of unprecedented times.  

The first seven years of budgeting, we mostly used  a combination of physical envelopes stuffed with  

cash and a homemade spreadsheet. We also tried  out Mint.com and Dave Ramsey's Every Dollar. And  

I'll explain why I don't think those come close to  what YNAB has to offer. In this video I'm going to  

count down the top 10 reasons I think YNAB is the  best budget software out there. Number 10. With  

YNAB you always look forward instead of backwards  with your money. Almost every other budgeting tool  

spends most of its time looking backwards. This  is the biggest difference between Mint and YNAB.  

Mint sends you pretty reports at the end of the  month to tell you where your money went, but how  

does that help you? The money you spent is already  gone. That's like trying to diet by having someone  

email you to say last Tuesday, you shouldn't  have eaten that whole package of Oreo cookies.  

Instead, with YNAB you make decisions about how  you're going to use the money you already have.  

What job does that money need to do for you?  Every time you get paid, you assign that money  

to the categories that need it. Number nine. YNAB  makes it easy to set targets for every expense.  

When I was trying to budget with paper envelopes  or my homemade spreadsheet, I tried to limit the  

number of budget categories I had because it  was too difficult to keep track of too many.  

YNAB makes it easy to make categories that you can  have a category for everything. It's such a relief  

to save up ten dollars a month or twenty dollars a  month for something that I know is coming up once  

a year. This has allowed me to confidently switch  to yearly billing on things like car insurance  

because I know I can easily budget for it every  month. In my first couple years using YNAB  

anytime an expense surprised me, I set up a  new category so I could save for the next time  

I know it'll come around. Number eight. YNAB is  more hands-on than other budget apps. This might  

sound like a bad thing but it's really a positive.  You're not going to make progress with your money  

unless you pay attention to it. Apps like Mint  just automatically import everything and put  

it right into your budget and make it way too easy  to ignore your money. YNAB can import transactions  

from your bank account but it'll still require  you to put those transactions into categories  

and if you really use YNAB, you're going to have  to regularly pay attention to where your money is  

going and that's sort of the point of budgeting,  right? Number seven. YNAB helps you make your  

money work with your own life priorities. YNAB  does have a set of rules that go along with the  

software but it's really just about making your  money work for your goals. Do you want to pay  

off debt? Great. YNAB can help you do it. Do you  want to save up to go back to school? YNAB can  

help you with that. Do you want to save up for a  pet alpaca? Whatever you want, YNAB can help you  

get there. Personally I want to use my money to  create a comfortable home life for my kids, fund  

their education, and save for my retirement. YNAB  helps me to see how I'm doing on those goals and  

how much I have left over for a little extra fun  along the way. Like, you know, maybe a package of  

Oreos. Number six. YNAB works effectively in the  real world. YNAB rule number three is roll with  

the punches which means that when your priorities  change, your budget should change with it in real  

time. And I don't know about you but I feel like  real life throws a lot of punches at me. This is  

the biggest problem I had with Every Dollar. It  doesn't allow you to easily move money from one  

category to another and work in real life. It  feels too rigid and not flexible enough for the  

uncertainty of real life. Number five. YNAB allows  you to effectively budget together with a partner.  

My husband and I both have the YNAB app on our  phones and can both put transactions in on the go.  

I'm the numbers person in our family so I handle  most of the heavy work of budgeting but we can  

use YNAB together to have productive conversations  and make well-informed decisions about our money  

together as a team. Number four. YNAB works really  well with credit card spending. When you spend  

money on a credit card, it automatically moves the  money into a category to pay off the credit card.  

Then the money is ready when you're ready to  pay it off at the end of the month. It helps  

use credit cards responsibly without going into  debt. Using YNAB has allowed me the confidence  

to use credit cards for our everyday spending  earning us hundreds of dollars in credit card  

rewards every year. I never had the confidence  to do that before using YNAB. Every Dollar,  

on the other hand, doesn't allow you to use credit  cards for spending at all. Number three. YNAB also  

allows you to track cash or gift cards in your  budget. We don't use a ton of cash anymore but  

it's really nice to be able to track it when we  want to. Mint, on the other hand, doesn't have a  

way to track anything that isn't an online account  so it can't handle cash or gift cards. Number two.  

YNAB has debt payoff planning. This is a brand  new feature that YNAB just added in late 2021  

and I feel like it was the last thing that was  needed to make YNAB the ultimate budgeting tool.  

You can now track your loan accounts and see how  making extra payments will make changes to the  

length of your loan and the interest you're gonna  pay over time. And finally the number one reason I  

think YNAB is the best budgeting tool out there  is that YNAB is not free. Okay, I know you're  

thinking I've lost my mind on this one but hear me  out. A lot of budgeting tools like Mint are free  

to use but nothing is really free in life. Mint  is paid for by ads and financial offers. Their  

whole purpose is to collect your information  so they can sell you on financial products.  

YNAB's whole purpose in existing is to  provide you with the best budgeting tool.  

That's it. That's how they make their money. If  you think their tool isn't great and isn't helping  

you reach your financial goals, you'll stop paying  their subscription fees. YNAB's goals are aligned  

with your goals and I think that's worth paying  for when you're talking about one of the most  

important parts of your life. If you're ready  to give YNAB a try, use my link down below and  

start your free one month trial. And if you  think there's a better budget tool out there,  

I'd love to hear in the comments down below.  I haven't found anything that can touch the  

functionality of YNAB but if you have I totally  want to hear about it. Next up, watch my video  

about the things that most new budgeters forget  to include in their budgets. I bet there's at  

least one thing that you forgot to include. I'll  put the link to that video right here for you.