YNAB

I downloaded the app and opened it and it starts make me go though some ridiculous role play and I can’t skip it. I’m not 5 years old. Don’t do that to people. You’re wasting my time. I deleted the app.

Used to be able to select all transactions when you search and now you can’t.

This month marks our 2nd anniversary using YNAB. It was recommended by a friend, and after more than a decade using quicken to track my spending, I decided to give it a try. It took a few weeks to really get the hang of it because I had to shift my thinking from looking back to what I’d spent to looking forward in planning my spending. About 6 months after becoming YNABers, my husband got laid off. After processing the shock and worry, we sat down together and looked at our YNAB plan, and cried with relief, thanking God for YNAB. We planned where his small severance payment would be used. We easily saw where we could move money around to cover more expenses. We saw where we could cut spending to stretch the money. Thanks to YNAB, we made it 4 months on my part-time salary and a little side work he picked up before finding a new job. We didn’t have to dig into our savings, and didn’t miss any bills. We even took a weekend vacation that was already planned and paid for, and non-refundable. We will never not use YNAB again. We have the app on all our devices, which sync seamlessly, so my husband and I are always in sync on our finances. We use the widget to watch our top categories like groceries. The YNAB team is making updates and improvements often. They have video resources (shout out to Hannah who feels like my BFF - Best Finance Friend) to teach you how to use their system. It really is easy once you have the right mindset for planning your spending. I’m addicted to the YNAB high I get every two weeks when I get to budget the paycheck that hits our account. It will change your life. I’m not exaggerating.

It’s great for making a set of goals and trying to follow them. But when it comes to tracking them, if you use credit cards, having so many different sources of data pulling from a single pool of hypothetical money can be kind of a nightmare. And if you make any mistakes trying to classify the strange organizational logic it uses for credit card payments, essentially everything breaks, with no simple way to fix it (that I can find). Pretty big bummer to pay for something that ultimately ends up being MORE work to fix than just manually copying details into a monthly spreadsheet would be.

Charged my card somehow for a subscription and I didn’t authorize. Total scam.

The money I save tracking my expenses with YNAB makes it well worth the subscription. This app had better features than other budgeting apps I tried. I do wish it had an area for journaling about money goals and reflecting on specific expenses (not just overall spending).

This app has put all my money worries aside and truly painted the picture of my financial situation. I know they preach it but it’s actually true, the money you spend per year for app is completely worth probably the thousands you save seeing your spending habits in such a full picture.

The app is stable and intuitive. The underlying approach to budgeting is solid. Support is great.

Hard to use the app because there is no text scaling. Makes it difficult to read. Very useful app otherwise.

I *loved* YNAB for years. Many of my transactions would hit my budget as soon as I swiped my card. Not anymore. For months now, my transactions are “delayed” while importing, if they ever import at all. I’m having quite a bit of financial trouble, which is certainly no fault of YNAB, but unfortunately I can’t count it toward financial or budgeting success. I’m needing to make a switch, and fast. My balance is so flubbed that I would have to start fresh, but even if I chose to do that, I don’t have time to wait for this issue to resolve itself, so I’ll have to switch to a more dependable app. It’s a bummer because they just added an option to plan for the future, which really fits my needs in this moment.