Wrong Item Shown – Family Finance Software Critique

With YNAB, I manually add transactions as they happen and use the import function to reconcile the cleared transactions with the bank (and to make sure I didn’t miss any which takes some of the “pressure” off of entering them manually). This keeps me current, forces me to think about what is actually being spent, and still gives me the assurance that all of my transactions are being recorded. It handles budgeting and it is very good that. I’d like to see an iPad app, and I’d like to see the iPhone app improved. I’ve tried out several. I liked all the bells and whistles of Quicken, but it wasn’t working for me as a budgeting tool as it only shows you where you’re money went.

Let’s say your car breaks down and its $900 to get it repaired. Without a budget, this can overwhelm you easily.

I highly recommend it. I wanted to get my finances in order so I took Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University. The most recent version of the software, which I received as a free download after having purchased the software about ten months ago, has added a ton of great features that help make the software easier to use. Why didn’t I give the product 5 stars” As a software developer myself, I am amazed at the attention to detail and effort put into the application on top of the base functionality. The program not only does what it was designed to do, it does it almost to perfection. I can transfer transactions between accounts. I could go on and on!

Its power is not tracking all of your financial details to the last mundane detail. It’s built with the idea of “do one thing and do it well” and that is budgeting. It is so freeing to get a month ahead on paying bills, but even if you aren’t planning to do that, you can use this software and tell your dollars where to go instead of wondering where they went! I thought budgeting would be too confusing for me. The YNAB web site has all the information you need to get up and running, and the forums are a friendly place with very knowledgeable participants to help with any questions you have. The original developer and his team participate in the forums and quite often a suggestion by a user is adapted as a new feature. You only budget the money you actually have, instead of (as with Quicken) guessing how much you’re going to spend and then comparing those totals with what you think your income will be. I used to try to budget out a whole year in Quicken, but with YNAB, I just budget out each month as I go (being sure to include things like $100/month for that $300 payment that only comes due once a quarter). If not, then we save some more. We enter our spending in about five minutes per day and do a quick review of where we are.

It’s eye-opening, to say the least. It will change the way you think about your money, or in my case, it made me *start* thinking about my money.

YNAB is a crystal ball showing me the future. This is a standalone 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.

For what this software does, there is absolutely no reason to need the check number. WORK BENCH FOR GARAGE.