You Need A Budget (YNAB) - Personal Finance Software

by YouNeedAbudget

Product Features

• Mac OS X, Linux, Windows, (Windows 7 / Vista/ XP / 95, / 98 / 2000 / ME / NT) Mac OS X (10.4.11 / 10.5.4 / 10.5.5 / 10.6), Linux (Fedora 8 and later / Ubuntu 7.10 and later / OpenSuse 10.3 and later)
• Stop living paycheck to paycheck - Get out of debt - Save more money faster
• Benefit from four unique, powerful rules for maximizing control over your money
• Gain financial peace by tracking all of your spending (dining out, groceries, bills) with one simple interface
• Be up and running in just minutes, also save time by importing your bank transactions
• Generate reports, schedule recurring transactions, and GAIN CONTROL.

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 2.1 ounces
• ASIN: B000QO76HU
• Item model number: 1.2.6
• Date first available at Amazon.com: May 12, 2007
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (214 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #218 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
  • #15 in Software > Personal Finance > Money Management
  • #48 in Software > The Mac Software Store

Product Description

Praised across the internet as hands-down the "best budgeting software", You Need A Budget (YNAB) cuts to the chase with your finances. The software focuses you on the foundation of your finances: the Budget. Experience has shown that when your budget is intact, and functioning correctly, everything else takes care of itself (the bills are paid on time, retirement contributions are made, and unnecessary debt is eliminated). The software is built around Four Rules of Cash Flow. These Four Rules will help you break the paycheck to paycheck cycle, get out of debt, and save more money faster. Where other software packages tend to be the products of years of feature creep, YNAB offers you exactly what you need: a simple, straightforward system to manage your money. Remember to take advantage of YNAB's fantastic support resources: video tutorials, and free live budgeting classes for any and all interested! YNAB is built on the powerful Adobe AIR platform, which means you can run it on Windows, Mac, or Linux!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

167 of 172 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Straightforward, solid BUDGETING software, November 23, 2007

By 

Ted Wallace (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: You Need A Budget (YNAB) - Personal Finance Software (CD-ROM)

I earn a good living. Yet earlier this year, several months after buying a house and getting settled back into the swing of things I couldn't escape the notion that my family was living beyond its means.

And we were. And YNAB helped me see it.

I'd previously used Quicken and Microsoft Money in an effort to do budgeting to no real effect. The truth is, Quicken and Money are more about having fancy checkbook registers than they are about helping you identify and conform to a budget. This is where they fail.

YNAB is straightforward and it does one thing, and one thing only -- it helps you create and manage a budget. With careful record keeping, you can do the same thing YNAB does with a pen and paper, or with Excel -- but the software is simple and easy-to-use and readily imports transactions (without fail) from my banking institutions.

I used to worry that the number in my checking account may not be enough to make everything come together. I can unequivocally state that now... I just don't care. Because of YNAB, I absolutely know that there's always money enough for anything that's going to come along.

YNAB has helped me exercise some discipline and do so without significant data entry or long, tortured sessions at the computer. If you're looking for something to help you manage your budget this is the software you should get. Ignore the name brands that simply aren't up to the task.

267 of 279 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great software, May 16, 2007

By 

Cady "Cady" (St Pete, FL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: You Need A Budget (YNAB) - Personal Finance Software (CD-ROM)

YNAB Rocks! In a truly frightening kind of "I spend that much money on THAT!" way but in a great way because you can see the impact of your daily coffee habit on your car insurance payment 6 months away.

YNAB allows you account for all your annual bills in 1/12 increments and then when they roll around the money is there to pay for them.

The heart of the YNAB system is a "buffer" which is comprised of last months paychecks in order to allow you to save this months paychecks. You can only live on last months money that you have budgeted into categories beforehand. The premise is that you are never broke and will not have to worry about fluctuations in income if you are living on what you have ALREADY earned.

So the buffer is one full months income. So I'm earning May's income and it is just pouring into my checking and sitting there. Also sitting there is all of April's income. April's income is what I'm paying my current bills with. May is accruing. And I'm budgeting for June's expenses with an eye to leftover April income instead of instantly using Mays.

The way I'm beginning to think of it is: Quicken is a snapshot of yesterday. YNAB is a crystal ball showing me the future.

This is a stand alone piece of software that can download transactions right from your bank so if you use a debit card you don't need to enter receipts for things. I can also say the tech support is the most amazing I have ever dealt with. I sent in a bug report and within 15 minutes had email waiting for me telling me to delete a particular font and then it worked perfectly.

Two thumbs way up but only if you want to see all the leaks in your money handling.

120 of 128 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great concept, too much manual entry, April 6, 2010

By 

NatureLover (CT) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: You Need A Budget (YNAB) - Personal Finance Software (CD-ROM)

I love the concept of YNAB: spending money from the previous month, planning ahead, etc. I had switched from MS Money to Quicken, and then tried YNAB. Yes, the tutorials are great, but they're really time-consuming. However, I spent the time, took the tutorials, and set up my finances in YNAB.

After a couple of months, however, I went back to Quicken. I found that Quicken also has good budgeting features, and while not in the same vein as YNAB, I just find Quicken easier to use. All of my accounts get automatically downloaded to Quicken, a feature not available in YNAB.

All in all, I just found that YNAB requires way too much manual entry. I might try it again at a later date, when I have the patience to do so.