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YNAB - Pros and Cons From a Former Mint User
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- Опубликовано: 27 окт 2019
- In this video, I'll tell you about the budgeting app YNAB -- what I like about it and what I'm not so crazy about.
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*** A full transcript can be found at www.marblejar.net. ***
Hi, everyone. This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today's video, I'll tell you about the budgeting app YNAB -- what I like about it and what I'm not so crazy about.
I did an overview/tutorial video on YNAB, which is a popular budgeting app. I've just switched over to YNAB from Mint and in this video I'll discuss the Pros and Cons of YNAB from the perspective of a long-time Mint user.If you've seen my YNAB tutorial, you have an idea of how YNAB's approach to budgeting differs from traditional budgeting. I would say YNAB is a combination of zero-based budgeting, which was popularized by Dave Ramsey and involves budgeting every dollar and paycheck budgeting, which is a method of mapping out expenses based on each paycheck. All that to say, coming from a Mint user, this took a little getting used to. With Mint, you spend some time setting up your budget with amounts for each category. These amounts remain the same for each month. Then you track your actual purchases against your budgets by grouping your actual spending into budget categories. You get an idea of where things are going, but the slate wipes clean every month, so if you were a little over on a couple of things, no big deal.With YNAB, you don't forecast your income. You can only budget money that you actually have in your account. There is much less forecasting and much more reality-based planning. In addition, YNAB forces you to be more actively engaged with your budgeting with notifications, alerts, and actionable budget views and colors. Plus, YNAB helps you to accumulate money in your budget categories for future purchases whether they are quarterly insurance payments, saving for a new car, or saving for your kids' college.PROSOkay -- first let's go through the Pros for YNAB. I've been very impressed with the app, so this list is much longer than the Cons.
* Getting Started - YNAB allows for imports, so you can import in transactions from another budgeting software or spreadsheet. For a budget nerd like me, this is nice since I wanted to import transactions all the way back from the start of the year. In addition, if you link your bank accounts, the bank balances reflected in the app should mirror your actual accounts to within a day or so. There are also ways to reconcile your account if you can't figure out why the amounts are wrong. Mint is missing a reconciliation feature.
* Budget Categories - Setting up your budget is a complete dream compared to Mint. You have complete control over adding, deleting, and editing categories. In addition, you can make new budget groups to put the categories in. YNAB has it's own groups by default, but you can add or delete whatever groups you want and make them contain whatever budget categories you want. Mint will let you make new budget categories, but you have to do it within their weird category group and it will not let you delete the default categories, so you are left with a TON of unwanted stuff to weed through every time you want to tag a transaction. Plus, YNAB allows you to manually sort your categories to however you want to see them, whereas Mint only sorts based on its weird category groups making it hard to know where things are. YNAB also has the ability to choose budget accounts as favorites which automatically show up at the top of the list -- for areas where you may be particularly interested in limiting spending for the month. I also love the fact that each group has totals for budgeted, activity, and available.
* Approving new transactions - once you link your bank and credit cards to your YNAB account, it will start to bring in transactions once they have cleared. This is another fantastic thing if you have been a Mint user. Mint does this, but it intermingles new transactions in with the old, so you have to pick through old transactions to try to find new one that have been imported. It's annoying. Not only does YNAB alert you when there are new transactions, it houses them in a separate spot and waits for you to approve them before putting them in with everything else. It's great. Also, categorizing transactions is super easy. First of all, you only have your own budget categories to pick from, unlike Mint where you have to scroll through all of their bizarro categories with complicated nested subcategories. But perhaps the best thing is that YNAB remembers the last category that you used with a vendor and puts that in as the default. So, for every transaction from a vendor that you've previously used, you usually just have to approve it, rather than choose a category. It's a huge timesaver for the activity that you do the most with budgeting apps . . .
I am on my second year of using YNAB, and while I still have my Mint account, I solely use YNAB. I have to say I have totally bought into the philosophy and recently started using the budget template and have goals set for just about every category. I love that it can change behavior and has greatly changed my own. It is so eye opening. I do primarily just use the mobile app to log transactions when I am out and about and the iPad app when I just]t reviewing my budget. For me the star is the desktop app which I use when I get my paycheck to update the budget every 2 weeks. You know you enjoy budgeting when you add emojis to all of the categories. Great video, I think it makes a very fair comparison of Mint and YNAB.
Thank you for the review. I am a financial nerd as it is my career. I used Mint for years and was finally fed up by all the extra work that I had to do to work around its issues, as you discussed in the video. You have convinced me to give this a try and not revert back to Intuit products. Thanks for the help.
I'm a Mint user and I just found your channel in my search to figure out the best ways to use the app. And now you've got me interested in YNAB. I'll definitely check it out, as I think I'd like the way it will change my spending behavior and accountability. Love your presentation. Thanks!
Suggestions for those coming across this for the first .
Tracking to be budgeted, and all category moves has an update called money moves so you can see the money you moved from one category to another. New feature.
When starting people that have a Cushion mentality. Here is a way to be ok with that. Make Cushion its own header and category. You goal will be to zero it out, but you don't need to do it right away. Once you have you flow of spending say after a month or two, think about what could mess you up. Car or household issues commit a fixed amount or a percent to that. Have pets? What if they need surgery how much per pet? Put that into you Cushion:Pet Emergency Fund. (NOTE this is not you pet grooming, doggie day care, yearly vet visits or licensing fund, that should be some where else as you should expect this to happen) Set up a realistic bereavement fund (include time off of work, hotel stay flights food clothing if needed). You or family is hurt fund (this should be separate just in case).
All in all the Cushion account should be a do not touch fund left closed until something is either in the hospital/dead or car or home emergency or loss of income. If you notice you are dipping into more then YOU WANT TO. This is a red flag as you income is not covering your expenses as they should, or Part of your Cushion needs to realistically be used as maybe a month ahead category due to infrequent or fluctuating income.
Even a Cushion is giving the dollar a job, even if it's a "month ahead" or "2nd month ahead" heck if you have a 6 - 12 month emergency fund you could lable them all 1 - 12.
Started budgeting for the first time. Choose YNAB. Did take some time to get used to. Initially I tried forecasting income: can’t do it! Watched a few tutorials and learned about budget goals for each category. Really is good to give each dollar a job and like to have the cyber envelopes for savings - letting those savings categories accrue!
Re: your comment about YNAB only pulling transactions starting today, if you change the transaction date of the opening balance it will pull transactions starting from that date.
Great video!
I did not know this. Thank you!
There's now a search feature on ynab app on top right by the 3 vertical dot which is a very helpful tool. I've also been a long time ynab user and I can never find anything that is better than this software.
Laura, Amazing video. Love what you're doing with your channel. Going to watch more of your content. Keep being AWESOME!😀😀😀
Hi. I'm very new to this and your description of YNAB makes me want to try it. Thanks for giving a clear and fair description of its pro's and con's.
You can rollover on Mint too, just flag “rollover” when you set up the budget limit for a certain category
I might have to give this a shot...
Great break down. Thanks so much. I just started using Mint but realized some limitations and started doing more research. Now, thinking about switching.
Seven year YNAB user here. Great video, welcome to the YNAB family
I’m new to YNAB and your videos are soooo helpful! Thank you!
I'd highly recommend Nick True - MappedOutMoney's tutorials on YNAB too. He explains YNAB features so clearly.
Agree!
I found a video on You Tube on How to Close your Mint Account. My App looked different than the one in the video but with a bit of searching around I was able to do it. It directed me to the Intuit web site where I entered the same email and password for Mint and in there I found the Account Delete Request.
Great. Thanks for letting me know!
At 8:46 you mention that it doesn't give as much transaction info as Mint, but if you click on the Payee there is a Bank Import Details button.
Edit: That's on their site, not the phone app.
Very very great video.
Nice Vids. I, like you, live in YNAB and it realy is a life changer- without making you feel restricted, it helps you allocate resources more effectively.
I handle the Income issue you mention by entering income into Budget categories that let me see it by source. As it comes in, I assign it to one of my Budget categories (populates automatically, as you note), then I just move the money to 'to be Budgeted'.
I love this hack! Thanks for the idea.
The YNAB mobile app actually does have a list of transactions. You just tap on Accounts, and from there select All Accounts, or the individual account in question. There you can see all of your past transactions along with your scheduled future transactions.
Thanks!
Thanks very much for your detailed review. I wonder if you've used Simplifi or have thoughts on that app as well?
I haven't tried it yet, but it is on my list!
not being able to search is a pretty big con for me. Sometimes I need to search to see if a particular bill changed or by how much it changed over time. Sometimes I change how I categorize things and don't remember, so I need to search transactions in the past. Also before you say YNAB would just keep the same category, mint does to...when a vender continues to list itself the same, but sometimes vendors change their name slightly or one CC lists it one way and a different CC lists it a different way. All and all I'm not seeing a reason for me to switch, but nice review non the less.
Chris -- looks like YNAB added the ability to search in their app right after I did my review. Just wanted to let you know!
You can assign income to a specific category. I do this all the time when I pick up the tab with my friends and they send me money.
TL;DR: *Doing this does **_not_** report income.* If you want to track the source or purpose of income, add a keyword in the memo field or flag it with a color when you report it (i.e. choosing "to be budgeted" for the category). All of YNAB's reporting features will be useless if you misreport income as negative expenses.
For better or worse, YNAB does exactly what you tell it to do. Assigning transactions to categories is meant to track your true spending behavior. In your case, you made a large transaction at a restaurant, but the amount doesn't represent your expenses in that category. Assigning the reimbursement directly to that category corrects the discrepancy. I do this when I return an item for a refund, for example. The transaction register and category reporting is doing its intended job: it shows what you actually spent and the type of expenditure.
Transaction categorization is not intended to track income. Think about it: the money your friends transfer to you _isn't_ income. It's not _new_ funds to spend. *Your friends are not giving you money you didn't have before.* They are restoring money you spent on their behalf after you earned it.
If you enter actual honest-to-god newly available funds as an expense, that's what you get. A negative expense. You *can* do this kind of thing without messing up your account balances or available budgeted funds. After all, all a transaction register does is calculate the sum of a column of numbers, positive and negative alike. Your budget's "available" column similarly does a brute simple arithmetic operation.
However, this destroys YNAB's ability to show you accurate reports. It can report based only on the information you give it. A monthly expense report shows the _net_ change. If you report your paycheck as a negative expense in a category, when you spend it, your category balances will be fine, but they'll show $0 expenses. If you manage not to spend it all, your expenses (for categories with available funds) will be negative for the month. You made money and spent it, but that's not what you told YNAB so that's not what it will tell you.
I suspect this would make it a nightmare to identify and correct errors in your account balance or budget availability if anything goes wrong. Again, you can choose to do this, but think carefully about the consequences of going off-label.
It occurred to me out of the blue that for some purposes, one could get the intended effect by reporting income to a separate, "virtual" account. Of course you'd have to manage it manually since there is no institution from which to import transactions-but you could select auto-imported transactions from your real account and send them to the virtual with a few clicks. If tracking income sources beyond the built-in "payee" field is a must-have, it might be a viable work-around.
My great objection to YNAB is that they do not allow you to enter income manually or as a block, or therefore effectively use the app without linking your bank accounts. Every Dollar is the winner on this and on teaching you to fight your way toward wealth but it's so expensive and also has no reports apparently.
You don’t have to provide bank information for YNAB. You can elect to enter all your transactions in manually if you want.
I use YNAB without any linked bank accounts and I populate all accounts I track in the software with manually entered transactions, as will every non-US-user because linking accounts is only available for US banks.
After watching a few of your and other YNAB videos, I decided to try it. Downloaded - just to find out they do not support TD Bank.... what a bummer - just lost 3 hours of research and have to start all over... Thank you for your detailed videos though :)
Natalia, did you contact YNAB directly about TD Bank not working? They do have a very good customer service division, easy to reach and they might be able to troubleshoot that for you. They contacted my bank at one point and fixed an issue.
It does support TD Bank. I have it in my list of linked accounts. If you are having issues, contact support. Sometimes they need to switch the service provider at the backend to resolve some of those connectivity issues.
YNAB presented me with a security dilemma when adding an account. It said it couldn't work with the 2FA of my bank. That seems unacceptable considering this is financial data that they are helping me manage. I've read that I can import financial data, if linking the account doesn't work. Unfortunately that idea is like going back to 2005 version of tools. I'd rather go forward, not backwards. Any suggestions for my situation?
I think YNAB has a special CS department that helps to deal with syncing issues. I would call to determine whether your bank is supported with 2FA before giving up. Thanks for the comment!
Timestamp 8:55; Referencing that a mobile screen is too narrow and as a result limits data categories from immediate visibility. My question is, does this change if you rotate your mobile screen 90 degrees?
Unfortunately, the app doesn’t have a landscape view.
OMG! This video is great!
Thank you!
I'm a long time ynab user. From time to time, I try to play with things like mint and mint like features within online banking but I can't fathom anything less than ynab and its methods.
Also noticed yearly is now 85! I am a nyab adopter from ynab4 so I pay 45.
I'm holding YNAB4 (Classic) with a death grip. It is such an awesome budgeting / personal finance tool, I feel very lucky I got a license since they haven't been available for purchase for many years.
@@turand1201- Keep on holding on to it! I had been using YNAB4 since 2012, and loved it. When my old computer gave out and I had to get new Mac recently, I could still use YNAB4; however, within a few weeks of buying, I installed an upgrade to the oS, but I wish I had not - I did not think there would be much change from the previous oS, but I can no longer use YNAB4. So I had to finally get with the new YNAB. For me, it is MUCH worse. I would GLADLY pay for YNAB4. The so called "improvements" are not that. What has happened is that my choices of how I do things have decreased. Jesse and gang may know how best to set up a budget for Jesse, but I don't like it at all! I have been using it for 2 months now and still would go back to YNAB4 in an instant if I could. PROBLEMS: 1. can't roll over negative balance in a category to next month (why is it OK to do that for a positive balance but not a negative one?). I prefer to see what's going on by category, not have the negative balance go into some generalized pot. GIVE ME THE CHOICE HOW I WANT TO DO THIS! 2. not possible to see > one month of budget at the same time. 3. Inability to create my own headings; e.g., I don't need a flags column, but FOR ME, a check column is very important (and no, putting it in the memo line just doesn't work nearly as well). GIVE ME THAT CHOICE! 4. I could see income for each month in YNAB4. In NewYNAB, I have to go to Reports to see it. 5. Printing transactins directly from an account used to be easy in YNAB4, but not possible now, except by taking numerous screen shots. WHAT A PAIN! There is more, but these are the main issues in which NewYNAB is worse.
@@christinaspolsky345 There is a reddit post where they go over how to convert your YNAB4 to 64-bit so you can use it on newer OS. I did that and it worked. :)
Sorry, but you CAN search in the mobile. It's a bit hidden, but it's there.
It's a new feature -- I think they launched it right after I put the video out. So glad you can search now!
Here's a link to Toshl.com: toshl.com/ There are different levels of programs (with different rates). I do have the Medici plan, and it was a chunk up-front but it's for 3 years.
Do you have any experience with Toshl? I'm completely new to budgeting (🙈) and this is an app I downloaded some time ago. after my divorce. I'm terrible about keeping up with it so far. I need tons of help! (I'm also curious about your coaching services?)
I’ve never heard of Toshi - I’ll put it on my list to take a look at. I volunteer as a financial mentor through an organization called Britepaths. Maybe there is something similar in your area!
Thanks! I'm really getting a lot of of your videos. 😊
Enjoyed the video! Can you tell me how to delete/close/cancel my Mint account?
Hi, Michelle - you know, I never did fully close my account, but I did delete all of my bank connections. I think, like you, I had a hard time figuring out how to delete!
How is cash treated? We have been using envelopes for Christmas, etc. Do you have to have all the money tracked in the bank? Thanks for your videos.
You can handle cash in a couple of ways. You can create an account for cash and document each dollar or you can manage cash withdrawals with transaction splits. Hope that helps!
@@marblejarchannel thank you for answering my question.
Question: Does YNAB have subcategories? For example, if I just want to see how much I spent on Food and Dining rather than groceries, dining out, fast food, etc Thanks!
Not exactly, but you can set up a heading for food in your budget that would total the amounts of any categories under it OR you can select those categories for a report to see the totals.
@@marblejarchannel Thanks. From a budgeting review perspective and based on your answers, seems like Mint is still better, even though it has its quirks.
YNAB doesn't have what it calls "subcategories," but it does have category groups, which is the same thing. I have a Food group in my budget, which contains the categories Groceries, Restaurants, Food Delivery Services, Coffee shops, etc. When I run a report I can see how much I spent on Food total, and the spending in each category under Food, which helps me see where I can cut down on discretionary spending. When I go to my transactions and type "Food" in the search box, it gives me the choice to search all fields for the word "food," or to run a smart search for the group "Food," where I can see every transaction in every category in a big list (including "Food: Groceries," "Food: Restaurants," "Food: Food delivery services" etc), or I can run a smart search for the single category "Food Delivery Service," to see how much I spent on those individual cateogories. Those functions will accomplish everything you would need from a subcategory.
I’d like to join ynab after watching your reviews! Why not pop your ynab referal link? I’d totally use it 👍
Thanks for the tip - I guess I should try to get a referral link!
why dont banks make their own budgeting apps? Seems like something customers would like.. (me)
Because banks were made to keep us poor ☹️