Comments on: You Need A Budget (YNAB) Pro Review

By: John

John — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 20:31:46 +0000

DCO, way to bring the tone of the comments down. If you want all of us to stop spending our money on a dressed up Honda, then why don’t you post the Excel template for us all to use. Or should we send you $20 for it?

By: DCO

DCO — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 07:26:44 +0000

I wouldn’t call this guy genuine by any means. YNAB is a perfect example of why you don’t put free content on the web. See, YNAB is a rip off of a FREE excel template I used (and still do) back in 2003. This guy ripped off the same format even. The only difference is a fancy appearance, not in excel format. Why pay $60 when you could of had it for free. Seriously it’s the same thing. You guys are fooled by Marketing, and he was trained by the biggest marketing scammer of all time, Ramit Sehti. How do you make a million dollars? Write a book called, “I will teach you to be rich”. Come on people wake up, it’s all about marketing. You didn’t have to pay anything, it was free all along.. the author clams that he used an excel template, why change? Looks? I work for a billion dollar revenue company and we still use excel templates for biding that mimics this accounting format. Wake up people, stop wasting your hard earned money on a Honda dressed as a Porsche.

By: Jim

Jim — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 02:27:20 +0000

YNAB 2 is somewhat confusing but it covers everything. I went to install ver 3 and they have changed the installer to Adobe’s POS (and i ain’t talkin point of sale) AIR installer.

I CANNOT run ynab 3, Uxepected error crash. Why oh dear lord why did you choose this method of installation??

Now I’m trying to find v2 cuz my key prob won’t work for v3 anyhow

By: aua868s

aua868s — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 11:36:04 +0000

the price indicates that they want to be competitive to Quicken!

By: Jun

Jun — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 00:35:32 +0000

I’ve been using YNAB since Feb 2009. Started living paycheck to paycheck, and now, I have 6 months worth of emergency fund! Previously used MS Money and Quicken, and the switch to YNAB wasn’t easy at first, because the philosophy is so different. But YNAB is definitely better for budgeting. Quicken/MsMoney only tracked where the money went at the end of the month; YNAB lets you decided at the beginning of the month how you spend your money.

By: Mikey

Mikey — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 13:30:40 +0000

Nate,

What is the coupon they send out to purchase within 48 hours? I see the coupon code that saves you 10% but would love to get the extra 10%?

Is it something you get when you download the free trial version?

Thanks.

Mikey

By: Safeway Sage

Safeway Sage — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:30:05 +0000

Nate,

Thanks for the info!

S_S

By: Nate

Nate — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 04:34:17 +0000

Safeway Sage:
Mint is a great tool. Here’s why I would switch – YNAB is a pure budgeting software, Mint is an expense tracker. What’s the difference? YNAB is designed to give you control by having you decide how the money will be spent “before” you spend it – Rule #1 and #2 (www.ynab.com). This appears simple, but will make a big difference over time in at least the following ways:
-you will be able to save more, faster;
-you will align your spending more with your values

Give it a try. With Jim’s coupon, plus a coupon they already send out to buy w/in 48 hours, you can get it for 20% off.

Best of luck.

By: Nate

Nate — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 04:15:47 +0000

Great questions Emma. I’ll try to help…

You should have all the functionality of the full version.

You can start at any point during the month. Check out the QuickStart Guide for more help getting started (http://www.youneedabudget.com/support/quick-start-guide/).

Yes, the categories can be created completely by you.

This shouldn’t happen – sinking funds is one of the primary functionality pieces and part of the YNAB Methodology – Rule #3 “Save for a rainy day.”

Good job for using Excel. Once you get started and get the hang of YNAB you won’t go back to Excel. The organization and functionality would take days to create in Excel – not worth the time.

Contact support@youneedabudget.com with additional questions.

Good luck!

By: Safeway Sage

Safeway Sage — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 18:07:51 +0000

I am a current user of Mint.com…

Is there any value in moving to this other platform?

S-S

By: Jim

Jim — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:35:47 +0000

It has 100% of the functionality of the real version, it just expires after 7 days. I’ll defer the other questions to Nate.

By: emma

emma — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:32:28 +0000

I’m trying out the trial version now. I take it that it doesn’t have much of the functionality of the real version?

Seems like you have to start your budget at the beginning of the month (we’re halfway through, it tells me I’m in the red, though I’m paid biweekly). There are no line items for school loans, credit cards, etc. I suppose you could rename some of the other categories you’re not using?

Also feels weird that I can’t enter all my bank account info, or it assumes that’s what I’m spending for my budget (I have sinking funds & emergency funds, but it’s adding them all together as if that’s my salary).

I have an excel spreadsheet that looks a lot like this, but with tabs for sinking funds and other account tracking info. Not really sure what this offers that you can’t do in excel fairly quickly…

By: Jesse Mecham

Jesse Mecham — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:06:06 +0000

@Jim, Jesse from YNAB here. Thanks so much for the thorough (extremely thorough!) review! I like how you emphasized the methodology throughout — that’s the key.

By: Nate

Nate — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:10:54 +0000

To further clarify, if you purchased YNAB Pro sometime in the past (for $49.95) the upgrade will cost $39.95. However, if you purchase YNAB Pro now (since Sept 1) you will get a free upgrade to version 3. If you wait until 3 launches, it will cost $60. Cheapest route: buy Pro now and upgrade for free.

By: Jim

Jim — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:06:07 +0000

If you go to the order page, it says that you will get a free upgrade if you purchase YNAB 2.0 after September 1st.